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I have read on some other forums that people are calling their brokers and isolating their shares. This is supposed to block the brokerage from utilizing these shares for shorting purposes. Now I don't know if this is true, but I will be calling my brokerage tomorrow to find out if this is so. If anyone knows about this please respond. Thnx
surfer000, I always thought they needed to have your permission before they can loan them out to be shorted.
Had heard that keeping GTC sell orders set would keep shorts from borrowing my shares. This is not true. Brokers still loan your shares for shorting. Here's what I found out: If you have a cash account you can request that your entire portfolio be restricted from share borrowing. You must call and request this. If you do not request it, assume that your broker is "lending" your shares for shorting.
If you have a margin account, you can typically have one or two positions isolated from the rest of your portfolio to prevent your broker from lending those shares for shorting. The rest of your porfolio will still be available to your broker for shorting.
I requested that my SIRI shares and one other stock position be isolated from the rest of my portfolio. I do not want my SIRI shares to be borrowed for shorting. I thought that I had prevented this by keeping my stocks for sale, but as I stated this does not do it. AFAIK, calling your broker is the only way to stop the borrowing and shorting of your Shares.
When your order is completed, you will see that SIRI will be placed in a separate box on your account web page from your other holdings.
When you signed your brokerage agreement, you agreed to allow your broker to borrow or lend to others your shares for shorting. Wasn't that nice of them? Even though you are unaware of it, you have already given them your consent to short your shares! I know you will call your broker tomorrow, right John?
Broker called this morning and said that he cannot isolate any stocks from my margin account to prevent them from being loaned for shorting. He explained that there is a new system called auto sweep that will not allow any positions to be separated from an account as they had done in the past. They are automatically redirected back to margin account status by the auto sweep.
The alternative is to open a separate cash account and place any shares you do not want loaned for shorting in that separate account. Of course, you could also change the whole account into a cash account, but then you would be prohibited from shorting Martha Stewart or anything else.
deewcom, I will call now, but the last time they called me to ask if they could barrow my shares in another company. I said yes then, because I did not know any better, it seemed to be a good enough deal. That was almost ten years ago, I know better now, not to let them do it at least with SIRI.
Deewcom, I am guessing your broker is Scottrade.
Another option is to send your shares directly to the transfer agent, where I don't believe they can be borrowed. You have to nag most brokers to do this and usually fill out a form.
I have cash accounts with Ameritrade and E*trade. Are they able to lend my shares too? If so I'll call in the morning to see what I can do to prevent it.
Are you telling me that I have another option? That Scottrade can move my shares to a (the, their, my) transfer agent? And my broker did not tell me about this third option?
Do you need both forms or just the outgoing one? Seems you won't need the incoming one til you are nearly ready to sell. Maybe you need the incoming one at the ready to bring the shares back ASAP when you want to sell.
So Scottrade does not like to do this. They prefer that a customer open a second account so they steer them thusly.
You use the outgoing one to place with the agent and incoming to place it back with ST.
I think Scottrade's reasoning is because they are a discount broker and they want your funds somewhat available so you make trades. Also the transferred $$ doesn't count towards margin, and they make some nice cash on those margin loans.
Hello all... today I called Etrade. I had originally opened a margin account. So I asked to change my account to a cash account. They ran down my portfolio and they had some of my stocks at margin. Now my account is fully funded and with cash to spare. I asked why are the margined. She told me it is in case I use margin these are the stocks that would be used to cover at end of day for my account overage. OK. I then asked to isolate my SIRI shares to they could not be lent for shorting. She told me that ETrade never lends clients shares. I used an analogy: When i make a deposit in a bank, the bank can use that money for what ever purpose they want till I want my money back. See reiterated that they do not lend out clients shares. I asked then what is the benefit of the margin account. She, of course, states the extended buying power and the ability to instantly use the cash from a trade immediately instead of waiting the required 3 days to have that cash. WHAT DO U THINK?
I have an Etrade cash account, margin disabled, and my sold share funds immediately show for trading. When using these funds from newly sold shares to purchase stock, I do get a warning that those funds haven't cleared and that if I trade the newly purchases shares before the sold shares clear that I can be suspended from trading for 60 days. Again this is a cash not magin account. If this was a margin account, so long as I stayed within my margin requirements, it wouldn't be a problem but I might pay a margin fee if the above requirements were not met.
I have two Scottrade and two Etrade accounts, the people that called me before to ask me if they could barrow shares 10 years ago was Etrade. I have no clue about this in scottrade. I do know Scottrade does not charge for transfers to Etrade but Etrade does charge for transfers.
cos1000, that is because it takes 3 business days for the trade to go through and clear (this is the reason for the EX Date for dividends). So you are using funds that are not really there, Etrade will let you get away with it 3 times before they do it. Scottrade will let you do it 3 to 5 times
Join Date: Aug 2008
Posts: 2
Thumbs up The shorts write crap like this to....
Yep shorts post this crap all over the net in all the forums regardless of the stock to benefit their short positions and then when all the uninformed chickens sell out it plays into their covering somewhere down the road. Do not sell out of SIRI because that along with isolating your shares or having them physically mailed to you prevents them from their ultimate goal and we all know what that really is. SIRI is a very strong buy in my opinion and we should see at least a double in 6 to 12 months so be vigilant.
It's a bit complicated and inconvenient to do (isolate shares of beaten down stocks like SIRI and DEIX from one's portfolio). Brokers discourage it. It serves the brokers' interest to keep all stocks available for lending for shorting. The banking analogy given by surfer000 provides a rudimentary example of how the system is supposed to work. A lot of naked shorting is occurring and brokers are participating in a shell game - keeping up appearances - maintaining the illusion - that there are sufficient numbers of shares of all stocks available for borrowing for shorting at all times.
(Sidebar: My broker said that SIRI can't be shorted in a Scottrade account b/c it is under $5.00. I then asked, what about other Investment Houses and Hedge Funds - can't they and aren't they shorting SIRI right now? My broker gave this answer - "I don't know what other firms are doing - they make their own rules". )
Will it make any difference if some retail investors are now isolating their SIRI shares from shorting? From the retail holder's point of view, does it really matter?
Perhaps what the brokers are worried about is something akin to a run on banks. If every retail holder did it, would brokers then be caught with their pants down? With an anemic SEC in charge would it matter?
To be honest, not really. According to a list released today of the Nasdaq Threshold Securities for Aug. 14th, Sirius has been on the RegSho list for 28 consecutive days. While that is indeed pathetic, it is not nearly as bad as some on that list...
Arthrocare Corp - 166 days straight
Bidz.com Inc. - 184 days straight
Conns, Inc - 233 days straight
Corus Bankshares, Inc - 364 days straight! Almost a full year!
And that is only the tip of the iceberg... I think these hedge funds hear SEC and start to laugh. RegSho = JOKE
My thought about the REGSHO removal could be more tied to the merger. Prior to the merger, we were on REGSHO. This meant that there was a failure to deliver on 0.5% of our outstanding shares. With a higher shares total due to the merger, wouldn't our REGSHO 0.5% limit also go up?
Just wanted people to know that I do have a large amount of shares purchased at different positions. Some 30K+ shares. I believe in Sirius XM. Let it ride... I'm in for the long haul. Thanks for viewing and replying to this thread.