Yes, it takes 3 days for your trades to settle through your brokerage house. Same with my account through Fidelity.
However, MMs usually have loads of shares on their books that they can use to settle trades almost instantly. That's how they "make a market". Those OTC Short Report numbers reflect MM activity ... big numbers.
And remember have real shorting works ... if you think a stock is going to drop in price, you might decide to short it. So you contact your broker and ask them to find shares that you can borrow (for a price of course). Then you sell the borrowed shares, pocket the the proceeds and hope the pps starts dropping so you can replace the borrowed shares with cheaper shares. Brokers also require you maintain a certain balance or margin in your account. Usually pretty hefty also, sometimes as much as 2.50 a share depending on your broker. Plus the share price might go up instead of down ... causing the broker to do a margin call for more dough from your account. If you don't have the cash the broker will liquidate assets from your account.
Since stocks can sometimes go way up, a shorter technically is at risk for unlimited losses. Balance that against the potential profit (after shorting expenses) of penny garbage. These POS are usually already low (normally a penny or less), so they can't drop very much. Limited upside, unlimited downside and huge expenses ... shorting is risky and expensive for big board stocks ... it is nonsense for garbage penny stocks.
Don't expect you to believe me. But do some research. Heck, call your broker and ask him/her. Go to the Questions and Answer board on IHUB.
One of huge myths of penny stocks is that short squeezes are common. In fact, I am not aware that there has ever been a short squeeze in a penny stock.
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