This is from Perchy on the other board. Great information! Doing this on the iPad and it doesn't always respect formatting, so forgive me if it's all bunched together!
Here some DD, got a bunch in my icpa dd archives!
Mostly non existing!
There are brokers that do allow people to short pennies, there is nothing illegal about shorting pennies, the reason most brokers don't allow it is because pennies don't trade on an exchange, they trade on a "listing service" aka the OTC markets. It's very hard for brokers to get shares that are available to short, and when they do find them, it's usually very very very small numbers for most stocks, so it really isn't even worth it. Anyone who claims that pennies are heavily shorted simply has no clue what they are talking about, nor how the system actually works. One of the most common things people do on I Hub is post the "daily short list" and use those numbers to "show" people how many shares are short on a penny stock. The problem with that list is, it doesn't just have the shares short for a stock, but also MANY other normal trades that aren't "short sells" at all but get marked as being "short" due to how the MMs record the trade. So basically that list is completely useless for telling how many shares are short on a penny stock.
I use a broker that allows you to short pennies, so I know exactly how it works. For a stock like ABOT, there might be a few 100,000 shares out there that you could get to short, and it's a first come first serve system, so you have to request and hope you are up in the front of the line. If you get any shares, it's going to be a very very small amount. On top of all of this, if you hold these shares short over night, you get charged $1 per share per night. So if you hold 50k shares short over night, you get charged 50,000 dollars. So that forces anyone who shorts these with most of the brokers out there that even allow it to cover the same day, something that is not easy to do and makes this whole process even riskier.
Then, to even get the shares short, you have to have $2.50 of buying power per share you get. SO if you want to short say 10,000 shares of ABOT, you have to risk 25,000 of your margin to get those 10,000 shares, even though 10,000 shares only costs like around 500 bucks at these prices, if you short it you have to basically risk 25,000 for those 10,000 shares... This alone really makes shorting pennies not even worth it, and this is something that is universal across all brokers that allow shorting of pennies.
And to respond directly to the claims that were made about "naked shorting", the only people that can legally naked short a stock are brokers and market makers, that's it. If you get on a broker that allows shorting of pennies, they DO NOT give you naked shares to short, they HAVE to actually go out and find shares for you to short, real ones. This is why the brokers who allow it have you fill out a "request list" for the penny stock you want to short.
Hope that clears some of the things about shorting of penny stocks...
-------------------------------------------------------------
MARKET MAKERS SHAKEDOWN: A MUST READ!!!!!!!!
MMs Practices exposed (somewhat)...This is from another poster who found this delicious breakdown of how the MMs put the screws to all who are weak and shake easily.
good reading..
More and more investors are winning the game
nowadays despite all bashers that float through the
Internet that has become part of the game. Floor
traders of market makers often watch CNBC, news
wires and bulletin boards in order to follow the
market during trading session. OTC BB market makers
(MMs) don't use fundamental and technical analysis.
However, what they do realize is a lot of dumb
money does use this newest niche charting or TA
(Technical Analysis) to run a stock either up or
down. To the MMs this is like taking candy from a
baby. Simply they will paint the tape and use
whatever tactic to affect the charting bands. Thus
the public and dumb money they will have eating out
of their hands. Effectively the MMs can show a
strong stock growing weak by manipulating the close
price in order to generate selling volume, delaying
trading time to manipulate trading activities, or
even stalling the ask without honoring orders to
hold a stock price.
MMs follow a simple code of business when making a
market in a stock especially an OTC BB / PS. That is the
level that stocks will seek that yields the most
volume. Now this is very important because they
make money on the volume buying at the bid and
selling at the ask. In other words, by making the
market they are buying low and selling high. Now
smart money adheres to that rule, so do all the
market makers. They could careless whether the
stock is at $22 or at $0.0002. All they care about
is the action thus being able to sell stock at the
offer (The high) and buy stock at the bid (The
low). To increase their profitability, they make
the spread as great as possible on as many shares
as they can especially if the volume falls off.
When they have mostly all "buy" orders, that's not
the price that's going to yield the most volume.
They need both buy and sells to get the maximum
action. Remember, MMs play the volume. If the
volume decreases and there are mostly Buys that
become a one way volume, Buy volume. So what they
do is let the stock run up to a price where it runs
out of steam. They fill all the buy orders there
that they can and then comes the pullback one way
or another naturally or induced. During the pull
back they can buy tons of shares and flip them to
those averaging down or trying to catch the bounce.
At some price, the stock will be relatively stable
and yield the most volume. Now that is the average
price you will see
The average price is the point where a stock seeks
a level where MMs can profit on the most volume.
So during the day that is the price that MMs and
momentum/day traders want to see the stock at. Why?
Because they know the public and dumb money was
chasing the price thing up. Most of the time, the
MMs love a flurry of Market Orders which is a dead
sign of an artificial run or momentum. Merely it
is money in the bank for them. Most get hung in a
momentum or day trade or by the tactics of Market
makers, who are in the business to screw the public
every chance they get. They are merely making the
market liquid is their reasoning.
The market makers have created an added
complication to the OTCBB's /PS chaos of the already
volatile intra-day price movements created by dumb
money, momentum and day-traders. MMs can not relate
to long-term holders in the OTC BB / PS. That makes
absolutely no sense what so ever. They feel a large
percentage of trades in the OTC BB / PS market consist
of short-term or day-trades, MMs merely view the
barrage of buy and sell orders as relatively
neutral to the market. How they figure it is when
the average dumb money buys shares in a company,
the MMs feel or rather know with some certainty it
is very likely that dumb money will want to sell
back those shares relatively quick on the slightest
drop.
Now somewhat comfortable with this logic the MMs
merely short sells into the buying and attempts to
take the stock down in an effort to "shake out" the
weak. Since it is tough to know for sure whether a
move is the beginning of a trend, or a routine
shake out, this type of deception works quite well
for the MMs. What the long-termers do to a stock
is surprise the MMs because instead of falling, the
shorting has no effect and the price goes up. Now
that puts the MM at selling low through shorting
and thus having to buy high in order to cover.
Boy, when this happens, the MMs are not very happy
campers. The investors and traders aren't supposed to
be doing that to them. Now it becomes time to pull
out every trick and tactic in the book in order to
attempt to get a Bear Raid at every dollar/cent mark or
percent from where the stock started. Could be a
fraction of a penny in smaller priced securities.
What MMs do is give you a chance to make a small amount
of money for your momentum and day trading style by
shorting it at these levels and trying to get a bear raid
each time. Each failure is compounding the MMs
short position so they let it go to the next level.
Now come more deliberate tactics MMs use to coerce
Bear Raid or panic selling.
Once the MM is caught short and the strength of the
buy is overpowering the MM will want to cover his
short position. So the MMs call up one of his
friendly MMs and says some like "the weather is
sure rough today." The MM along with the other
"friendly MM initiates a down tick about the same
time. Now this can also be done with a certain
amount of shares such as an infamous 100 shares
flag. This down tick gives the illusion of weakness
designed to hopefully begin the bear raid of
selling. The fickle, fearful, day trader, momentum
and short term begin to sell out allowing the MM
to cover his short position at lower prices. They
will move it down quickly to get it to a price of
least financial damage. Problem they have is
long-term investors in the OTC BB / PS. They start
accumulating and buying comes flying in when they
take it too far thus the MMs took it to the point
of volume again and not only investors the other
MMs step in the make money on the spread.
Alas the poor MM does not get to cover. Now comes
various tactics like stalling, boxing, or even
locking the Bid and Ask for a while.
Of course, MMs aggressively deny any sort of
collusion designed to fix quotes or spreads.
MMs have a vast resource of tactics and it would
take probably more than a lifetime to figure them
all out.
So how do investors somehow manage to overcome the
obvious deception in OTCBB arena? One answer is
indirection trading style by going long which the
MMs do not expect. In the war between investors and
public companies on the OTC BB / PS vs the MMs, if the
MMs have all the advantages due to position or
other factors, direct confrontation such as
momentum or day trading hitting the stock is a
definite death sentence.
However, an indirect approach tends to weaken the
path of least resistance before slowly overcoming
it. The most effective way is long-term investors
slowly accumulating and holding thus drawing the
MMs out of its defenses making them as naked as
their short position. This is war so this slow
accumulation and holding for the long term easily
achieves the desired effect to force MMs to cover
and knock off the tactics or bury themselves
deeper.
The MMs when caught will especially use every trick
and tactic in the book to get a Bear Raid thus
playing on the individual fear of most people. The
MMs feel they have information and position
advantages over the investors as long as the
holding of the stock is in weak hands or short term
holders. Since they are OTC BB MMs who believe all
OTCBB companies are not worth investing and
management is ineffective regardless what is
happening within the company. Furthermore, MMs know
they are in the position to impose a great deal of
influence in OTC BB stocks trading when it suits
their needs.
This inherent power of position enables the MMs to
move the markets at any time up or down. As a
result, the only way to draw them out of their
favorable position is going long. Now this does not
mean just any company but to effectively nail the
MMs, Longs must find the great company on the floor
and accumulate long before the MM tactics and games
begin.
Here some DD, got a bunch in my icpa dd archives!
Mostly non existing!
There are brokers that do allow people to short pennies, there is nothing illegal about shorting pennies, the reason most brokers don't allow it is because pennies don't trade on an exchange, they trade on a "listing service" aka the OTC markets. It's very hard for brokers to get shares that are available to short, and when they do find them, it's usually very very very small numbers for most stocks, so it really isn't even worth it. Anyone who claims that pennies are heavily shorted simply has no clue what they are talking about, nor how the system actually works. One of the most common things people do on I Hub is post the "daily short list" and use those numbers to "show" people how many shares are short on a penny stock. The problem with that list is, it doesn't just have the shares short for a stock, but also MANY other normal trades that aren't "short sells" at all but get marked as being "short" due to how the MMs record the trade. So basically that list is completely useless for telling how many shares are short on a penny stock.
I use a broker that allows you to short pennies, so I know exactly how it works. For a stock like ABOT, there might be a few 100,000 shares out there that you could get to short, and it's a first come first serve system, so you have to request and hope you are up in the front of the line. If you get any shares, it's going to be a very very small amount. On top of all of this, if you hold these shares short over night, you get charged $1 per share per night. So if you hold 50k shares short over night, you get charged 50,000 dollars. So that forces anyone who shorts these with most of the brokers out there that even allow it to cover the same day, something that is not easy to do and makes this whole process even riskier.
Then, to even get the shares short, you have to have $2.50 of buying power per share you get. SO if you want to short say 10,000 shares of ABOT, you have to risk 25,000 of your margin to get those 10,000 shares, even though 10,000 shares only costs like around 500 bucks at these prices, if you short it you have to basically risk 25,000 for those 10,000 shares... This alone really makes shorting pennies not even worth it, and this is something that is universal across all brokers that allow shorting of pennies.
And to respond directly to the claims that were made about "naked shorting", the only people that can legally naked short a stock are brokers and market makers, that's it. If you get on a broker that allows shorting of pennies, they DO NOT give you naked shares to short, they HAVE to actually go out and find shares for you to short, real ones. This is why the brokers who allow it have you fill out a "request list" for the penny stock you want to short.
Hope that clears some of the things about shorting of penny stocks...
-------------------------------------------------------------
MARKET MAKERS SHAKEDOWN: A MUST READ!!!!!!!!
MMs Practices exposed (somewhat)...This is from another poster who found this delicious breakdown of how the MMs put the screws to all who are weak and shake easily.
good reading..
More and more investors are winning the game
nowadays despite all bashers that float through the
Internet that has become part of the game. Floor
traders of market makers often watch CNBC, news
wires and bulletin boards in order to follow the
market during trading session. OTC BB market makers
(MMs) don't use fundamental and technical analysis.
However, what they do realize is a lot of dumb
money does use this newest niche charting or TA
(Technical Analysis) to run a stock either up or
down. To the MMs this is like taking candy from a
baby. Simply they will paint the tape and use
whatever tactic to affect the charting bands. Thus
the public and dumb money they will have eating out
of their hands. Effectively the MMs can show a
strong stock growing weak by manipulating the close
price in order to generate selling volume, delaying
trading time to manipulate trading activities, or
even stalling the ask without honoring orders to
hold a stock price.
MMs follow a simple code of business when making a
market in a stock especially an OTC BB / PS. That is the
level that stocks will seek that yields the most
volume. Now this is very important because they
make money on the volume buying at the bid and
selling at the ask. In other words, by making the
market they are buying low and selling high. Now
smart money adheres to that rule, so do all the
market makers. They could careless whether the
stock is at $22 or at $0.0002. All they care about
is the action thus being able to sell stock at the
offer (The high) and buy stock at the bid (The
low). To increase their profitability, they make
the spread as great as possible on as many shares
as they can especially if the volume falls off.
When they have mostly all "buy" orders, that's not
the price that's going to yield the most volume.
They need both buy and sells to get the maximum
action. Remember, MMs play the volume. If the
volume decreases and there are mostly Buys that
become a one way volume, Buy volume. So what they
do is let the stock run up to a price where it runs
out of steam. They fill all the buy orders there
that they can and then comes the pullback one way
or another naturally or induced. During the pull
back they can buy tons of shares and flip them to
those averaging down or trying to catch the bounce.
At some price, the stock will be relatively stable
and yield the most volume. Now that is the average
price you will see
The average price is the point where a stock seeks
a level where MMs can profit on the most volume.
So during the day that is the price that MMs and
momentum/day traders want to see the stock at. Why?
Because they know the public and dumb money was
chasing the price thing up. Most of the time, the
MMs love a flurry of Market Orders which is a dead
sign of an artificial run or momentum. Merely it
is money in the bank for them. Most get hung in a
momentum or day trade or by the tactics of Market
makers, who are in the business to screw the public
every chance they get. They are merely making the
market liquid is their reasoning.
The market makers have created an added
complication to the OTCBB's /PS chaos of the already
volatile intra-day price movements created by dumb
money, momentum and day-traders. MMs can not relate
to long-term holders in the OTC BB / PS. That makes
absolutely no sense what so ever. They feel a large
percentage of trades in the OTC BB / PS market consist
of short-term or day-trades, MMs merely view the
barrage of buy and sell orders as relatively
neutral to the market. How they figure it is when
the average dumb money buys shares in a company,
the MMs feel or rather know with some certainty it
is very likely that dumb money will want to sell
back those shares relatively quick on the slightest
drop.
Now somewhat comfortable with this logic the MMs
merely short sells into the buying and attempts to
take the stock down in an effort to "shake out" the
weak. Since it is tough to know for sure whether a
move is the beginning of a trend, or a routine
shake out, this type of deception works quite well
for the MMs. What the long-termers do to a stock
is surprise the MMs because instead of falling, the
shorting has no effect and the price goes up. Now
that puts the MM at selling low through shorting
and thus having to buy high in order to cover.
Boy, when this happens, the MMs are not very happy
campers. The investors and traders aren't supposed to
be doing that to them. Now it becomes time to pull
out every trick and tactic in the book in order to
attempt to get a Bear Raid at every dollar/cent mark or
percent from where the stock started. Could be a
fraction of a penny in smaller priced securities.
What MMs do is give you a chance to make a small amount
of money for your momentum and day trading style by
shorting it at these levels and trying to get a bear raid
each time. Each failure is compounding the MMs
short position so they let it go to the next level.
Now come more deliberate tactics MMs use to coerce
Bear Raid or panic selling.
Once the MM is caught short and the strength of the
buy is overpowering the MM will want to cover his
short position. So the MMs call up one of his
friendly MMs and says some like "the weather is
sure rough today." The MM along with the other
"friendly MM initiates a down tick about the same
time. Now this can also be done with a certain
amount of shares such as an infamous 100 shares
flag. This down tick gives the illusion of weakness
designed to hopefully begin the bear raid of
selling. The fickle, fearful, day trader, momentum
and short term begin to sell out allowing the MM
to cover his short position at lower prices. They
will move it down quickly to get it to a price of
least financial damage. Problem they have is
long-term investors in the OTC BB / PS. They start
accumulating and buying comes flying in when they
take it too far thus the MMs took it to the point
of volume again and not only investors the other
MMs step in the make money on the spread.
Alas the poor MM does not get to cover. Now comes
various tactics like stalling, boxing, or even
locking the Bid and Ask for a while.
Of course, MMs aggressively deny any sort of
collusion designed to fix quotes or spreads.
MMs have a vast resource of tactics and it would
take probably more than a lifetime to figure them
all out.
So how do investors somehow manage to overcome the
obvious deception in OTCBB arena? One answer is
indirection trading style by going long which the
MMs do not expect. In the war between investors and
public companies on the OTC BB / PS vs the MMs, if the
MMs have all the advantages due to position or
other factors, direct confrontation such as
momentum or day trading hitting the stock is a
definite death sentence.
However, an indirect approach tends to weaken the
path of least resistance before slowly overcoming
it. The most effective way is long-term investors
slowly accumulating and holding thus drawing the
MMs out of its defenses making them as naked as
their short position. This is war so this slow
accumulation and holding for the long term easily
achieves the desired effect to force MMs to cover
and knock off the tactics or bury themselves
deeper.
The MMs when caught will especially use every trick
and tactic in the book to get a Bear Raid thus
playing on the individual fear of most people. The
MMs feel they have information and position
advantages over the investors as long as the
holding of the stock is in weak hands or short term
holders. Since they are OTC BB MMs who believe all
OTCBB companies are not worth investing and
management is ineffective regardless what is
happening within the company. Furthermore, MMs know
they are in the position to impose a great deal of
influence in OTC BB stocks trading when it suits
their needs.
This inherent power of position enables the MMs to
move the markets at any time up or down. As a
result, the only way to draw them out of their
favorable position is going long. Now this does not
mean just any company but to effectively nail the
MMs, Longs must find the great company on the floor
and accumulate long before the MM tactics and games
begin.
