I couldn't risk it. I'm used to shorting a lot of OTC stocks and there it definitely it affects your profits if its a popular short(You never get shares and if you do you get bought-in frequently) maybe I'm getting paranoid but from now on I still stick with the more liquid plays. I botched AAPL One of the most liquid stocks on earth was an easy short a few days ago, I won't be worried about that one if it sets up again
Getting out is the easy part, if you are short 1 SSF, you buy 100 shares of the stock and by the expiration of the future the 2 positions will cancel each other at no cost(of commissions or spread I believe). There is also some margin relief for this hedged position(not 100% but there is some relief) The problem is getting in at a reasonable price with no market makers. You have to hope someone is watching the future and accepts your price. They are likely to only accept if your price is off by some significant amount
SBUX really looks like they will go ahead with TEA purchase http://seekingalpha.com/article/1047881-starbucks-corporation-shareholder-analyst-call?page=6 "We are going to transform the entire tea category and we're going to do it with Teavana in 3 ways"
I would say so. ATM 95k shares, ie about 3% of the float, are available to short, this with IB only. How can the borrow rate be at 47% ? Is it a general trend on popular stocks to short ? With such rates, options are probably a cheaper way to go
FMCN taking a bit on news someone walked out of the deal. I remain the same plan, I rather wait for the deal to implode and short the stock all the way down rather thanbet against this little scam cover up game the chinese are playing
I'm using the same idea - just keeping it on the radar. Then if/when news about the deal falling apart is released, I'll be ready to short it, if there is an opportunity to do so. From memory, John Hempton from Bronte Capital has said that it goes to (low?) single digits if the deal falls apart.
TEA might trade above buyout as arb's buy the stock and lend out to short sellers then collect borrow fees. The stock was a strong buy on the day that I covered. I didn't not knew that these borrow rates tended to remain high. Its a lesson learned in this trade
I was think TEA was a short when it first started trading at the buyout number. It was still easy to borrow and and it seemed like trading high about the 15.50 number was unlikely.
Best short in the market right now is AAMRQ. If I'm right the stock is worthless and any deal that comes out will give $0 to current shareholders. If the unions are getting 13% you can be sure shareholders will get less than that. Likely $0, even the company disclaimers warn against that possibility. There is simply no reason to reward current shareholders and creditors are not in the charity business, they control the agenda. This is completely different from GGP, GGP style situations are super rare anyway, most of the time common is worthless and stops trading Last time I checked IB had 5M shares to short. The risk here is if the stupidity doesn't stop even after the deal is announced and they say that the stock is worth nothing, you would think that people would stop buying at that point but there is no limit to irrationality in OTC stocks I do expect the stock to fall after announcement but the stock will retain some value until it is cancelled and its trading suspended, that is the only way you get idiots to stop buying The parabolic chart pattern just makes it more likely it will fall over the short-term