Yeah, this happened to me a few years back in one of these momo stocks. I paid like $13k in borrow fees over a few months for only 200 shares.
If you trade those strange / odd / orthodox / out-of-the-world / going-to-die stocks, be prepared for a big surprise. Once, I was stuck holding some OTC stocks for extremely long. I couldn't sell it until a decade later. The tradable period for TOP was extremely short; from the end Apr to early May 2023. That might qualify for the Shortest Tradable Stocks Guinness World of Record.
If you short TOP with 200% rate, and it closed for 10 years, your interest could brankrupt you. Why sec has not done anything to change this? Eg, no interest when the stock is halted? So many trading firms who short a wide range of stocks, why have not they lobbied sec to act ?
I was willing to short it on the news around $8, and thought I did did until Nasdaq busted all the trades after the open. Apparently they couldn’t get their act together and halt the stock for nearly an hour despite the SEC press release at the open suspending the ticker.
https://www.sec.gov/litigation/suspensions/2023/34-97493-o.pdf The Commission is of the opinion that the public interest and the protection of investors require a suspension of trading in the securities of TOP. Therefore, it is ordered, pursuant to Section 12(k) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, that trading in the securities of TOP is suspended for the period from 9:30 a.m. EDT on May 12, 2023, through 11:59 p.m. EDT on May 25, 2023. NYSE link NYSE Group Equities Exchanges in conjunction with other UTP exchanges, have ruled to bust all trades in TOP - TOP Financial Group Limited, executed between 9:30:00 - 10:09:00 ET today. This ruling is not eligible for appeal.
It is certainly weird that the stock borrow/lend rate is not conditional on a functioning market. Someone long the stock can't do anything with it while it's suspended, and so is not actually giving up anything, and hence shouldn't be charging the rate. Or am I missing something?