So I was playing around with Paper Trade on TDA today, I've never shorted anything before (Robinhood user) so I just randomly picked a few off my watchlist an put in short orders..... Then I came across this message Ignore the time, I just tried it again so I could get a picture of the message... I got this same message during market hours
They dont have any clients that own the stock to borrow from, or none which have not already been borrowed from. The stock is either thinly traded or it is already heavily shorted. Actual stocks have to be borrowed and then sold on the market to be considered legal short selling. Short selling fictitious shares is called "naked shorting"....not legal unless no one is watching.
Average volume is 200k - 500k.... And acording to Yahoo Finance, short interest is 15% of the float... That's pretty high, but I've seen higher So most likely, no one with a TDA account is holding this stock?... At least not long enough to loan out?
You would have to call the TD helpdesk or better yet go into TOS Support/Chat and open a chat with them and ask. They can give you a definitive answer. My guess is that they don't have that stock in their inventory of stocks they can let you borrow and they would have to go outside their system. Doubtful that would do that for paper trading.
Jerry's reply raises an interesting question. For shorting in a paper trading account, I wonder if their universe of stocks to borrow only includes those held long in a "paper trading" account?
I though paper trading was all fake... Fake money, fake shares They don't actually hold an inventory for paper traders.... Do they? Surely not... If so, what would stop me from buying $200,000 worth of a penny stock on paper, then shorting it on my real account and dumping the paper?? Why do I feel like I could go to jail just for typing that??
You know something about AVXL? If this was a real company (i.e. not a clinical stage biotech, where news can come out at any time) I'd take a chance on this running. Volume has decreased in this latest base. Bases have been stepping up.
Na, I just found it on a screener and flagged it to take a closer look later It's in a nice tight range... A little too tight!.... Looks like barbed wire, and should have broke below the MA's.... Especially with majority red volume accumulation bars It was paper money... I wouldn't play this one either way with real money....... Yet
OK was just wondering if you heard some pumpers mentioning this. I keep tabs on this stock, but there is a chance it's a scam. It's certainly not run like a professional company, but I give them the benefit of the doubt because nothing else is working in Alzheimer's.
Just to be clear, I wasn't suggesting that they mix real world assets with paper trading. What I am suggesting is that to make paper trading as real as possible, they work it just like real world. So if there are no shares available to borrow in any of the other paper trading accounts, then it generates the message you got......"Rejected: This stock is not available to borrow....". I have a TDA paper account but I think I've only used it once, maybe twice. I guess some people think it is helpful. Back when I used to actively trade, I used the $140/month e-Signal platform and Scottrade. I was calling Scottrade every other day to have them find me shares to short. They did not charge me to do that. They just asked me how many I wanted to borrow. Brokers want to keep your trade in-house to maximize their profits. Even on a buy order, they try to fulfill it with sell orders from their other customers if they can, so they don't have to route it out of their shop. I believe it is insignificant unless you are day trading.
They use real time data from their regular platform to drive it. The transactions themselves never make it out of TD Ameritrade to the actual exchanges. If you were dealing with real money and got that message, it might be possible to call the trading desk and see if the stock you are wanting to short could be borrowed outside TD. Not sure though as I do not deal in shorting.
