Tried to short a stock today, order not executed. After getting on to IB, found out that there were no shares available to short. Previously, I would get a pop up message stating this to be the case - no longer the case, apparently. Crazy situation...anyone else peeved by this?
If you leave the order in the simulated state (dark blue), our stock loan department begins to search for the shares. When they find the shares, the order will be submitted. You can cancel the order if waiting doesn't fit your strategy. We should give some indication in the TWS of what is happening. Probable will be released in the next TWS build.
So if the order gets submitted instantaneously (i.e., goes green or gets filled), then IB had the shares to borrow. If not, it turns dark blue because there are no shares to borrow currently. But later, if you keep the order open, the shares might become available and your order would go active? In this case, where IB has had to do extra work to borrow those shares, is there an extra charge applied to the transaction?
This is a somewhat related point relating to another message. When an opening order is not executed, you get a message to that effect that apparently cannot be turned off. The message is not too helpful because it doesn't identify the particular order and you can readily tell which orders are not executed anyway. If you submit a lot of opening orders, TWS is not functional while these messages are popping up. I think it would be an improvement if this message could be turned off. MS
is there some way to query IB to see if there are shares available to short? without trying to place an order.
To check if there is any stock available, simply enter a limit order to sell way above the ask, this way, if the shares are available then the order will turn green, but won't be executed as not marketable, then you can immediately cancel the order.
this is one of the first changes IB has made which i'm not thrilled with; i much preferred the other way.
gaj, Was also annoyed when they 1st made the change, but the fact that you can have an order that expresses your interest to short a stock and gives IB a chance to find the stock for you is a good thing in my opinion. Before this change, if the stock was not available then your order was simply cancelled and you had to keep resubmitting it to check if some stock had become available. This way you can be alerted immediately when the stock is available. If you are concerned that when the stock becomes available then the order will immediately execute, then simply submit the order as a LMT order a good distance above the ask.
It would be nice to know this stuff in advance before IB changes it. To think that people would not get confused about it seems irresponsible. And this is not the first time a change like this has happened without notice. It is an annoying and repeating pattern.