One of the systems I’m subscribed to has shorted IFN which is not available for shorting. I know this is a mistake of the system provider but is there any way C2 could identify not shortable stocks and prevent this from happening? Right now C2 is building an inccorrect track record for the system because of this.
Panu
But different stocks are shortable at different brokers. Just because one particular broker doesn’t have an inventory of available stock does not mean there’s not another broker that does. So we assume all shorts are valid (except for stocks under $5, which are not shortable anywhere). Is there a reason IFN should be regarded as globally unshortable?
I tried with IB and TDAmeritrade and both say it’s not available for shorting. And the system provider also says he was not able to short it in his real life account. In my understanding there are certain stocks (this is a closed end ETF) that cannot be shorted at all. But it may not be easy to keep a list of those in C2…
Panu
Unfortunately, there’s no simple way to determine if a symbol is a closed-end fund that can’t be shorted. My suggestion is this: if the system vendor wants to place impossible trades – while knowing they are impossible – then the system is not professional and you should not subscribe to it. - MK
No, he didn’t know it so I don’t believe this happens often. I just want to help develop C2 to match the reality as much as possible but I understand it’s sometimes quite difficult to do.
This doesn’t help with automating this but just FYI:
http://www.nyse.com/RegulationFrameset.html?displayPage=http://www.nyse.com/threshold/
IFN is on the list.
Actually, it does help with automating. The link on the NYSE Web site that you provided also shows that there’s a pipe-delimited file available for download. I’ll need to make C2 automatically get that list every day and filter out invalid shorts. Thanks.
