I ask due to I was in a line inside a gas station convience store and this guy is telling the clerk he shorted thousands of shares of Facebook early afternoon and then covered like within the hour and claims to have made many of thousands of dollars in that short time.... When the guy walked out of the store another guy in line said "Bullshit...no shares were shortable" What's the scoop Was the guy telling the truth or was he a BS artist? Thanks
the emphasis was customer. When I was a member of an exchange via a trading llc. .. people in our group short IPOs. One guy in another office, whom I knew well, got lucky and shorted the top tick (4 dollars over the market at the time) it was the all time highest print on a once famous internet stock. Then one of our traders got quoted in the media about how much he made doing it. Over time there was pressure put on us to stop doing it. But, some people did it anyway. Now I am sure some exchanges have tightened up, but unless laws have been made against exchange members doing it... I am sure there are plenty out there shorting the heck out of it.
that sounds like a pretty cool C store. You sure you're not having a mental breakdown? When I had OPM and everybody was down, not just trading accounts but all conservative accounts, I stopped in a pizza parlor after work, and I swear everybody in the place was discusiing gold and the stock market. Even a group of high school students were laughing and bragging how they were all short the S&P.
I heard on NPR that there were thousands of retail buyers for FB. There was even an order to buy at $4000 per share !!.
I dont think options are available for an IPO for some time. Not sure if there is an exact time after an IPO, or just when options MM feels like....