Hey Ozie, thanks for the kind welcome. Glad to be here. What I have learned over 25 yrs of trading from talking to brokers and market makers is this, What i was told is that if someone comes to a broker like Amerititrade who when I called today told me they had 200k-240k shares to short in TTCM. The only reason i found out was the second trader i spoke with slipped up when i asked him how many short shares are available and he started saying "200k" and before he gave me the exact amount he stopped and said I can't give you that information, its proprietary. So since he let the cat out of the bag lol I said so I said I wanna short 300k shares, he said we can't do that, then i said I wanna short 250k shares, he said we can't do that so then I said i wanna short 200k shares lol he says, we can do that. So i figure they had between 200k-240k available to short. The first trader i spoke with almost immediately passed me off to his supervisor when I asked about the short shares available. But I gave it to both of them good, I said, if i wanna short this stock you can't tell me how many shares are available? They both said no. I said are you freakin kidding me, the number is right in front of you and you can't tell me? I said thats bullsheet. I said what do I have to do, guess the number? He basically said, yes. I said again thats f'n bullsheet. Most other Brokers I called said they don't short pennystocks and were surprised that other companies do it. . But i looked up online brokers and that guy Timothy Shykes are whatever his name is, he recommends a few sites that allow it. Most brokers believe its illegal to short pennystocks.
Anyways, what i learned about shorting from brokers and markets makers over the years, if someone calls them and wants to short a stock the broker looks at his inventory, meaning any shares in any of our accounts that are just sitting there without having a sell order on it. If there is no sell order, its part of the inventory and they can lend your shares to this other person aka short them. Just like the shares that brokers sell you when shorting. Brokers sell whats called Reg Sho shares, thats the title they use for shorting shares. The brokers have to buy them back within 5 days by SEC regulations. Not exactly clear what the penalty is for not buying back in that time frame. So I was told in order to remove them from the shorting inventory you should place them for sale, limit order, for a very high price. Right now I have all my TTCM for sale at a limit order at $10 a share for now. Now thats for brokers.
Market Makers have their own rules, most brokers won't do the following because in the past they got busted for it. Its called naked shorting aka selling fake shares aka shares made out of thin air. Market Makers job are to provide a liquid and orderly market. So if the Market Maker had no shares to sell you when you are trying to buy, he can just sell you fake shares which means he is shorting the shares since when he sells you the shares and he is supposed to buy them back within I believe its 5 business days. The market makers manipulate the market by stopping huge runs or to keep a stock controlled for some reason. Sometmes the companies themselves are in on on it. The market makers sell all these fake shares on the run up and then these pennystocks companies give the Market Maker those shares to replace the shares they sold for the company dirt cheap. Let's say a stock was being naked shorted at .03 hard by a Market Maker, he's making a ton of money on fake shares but he needs to replace those shares at some point like 5 days but they don't care imo and play games and will cover aka buy those shares when the stock dips and they make the thier money from the difference of where they sold at and bought back at. Sometimes the companies just give them shares at a very cheap price, the company makes money from the Market Makers on those shares and the market maker makes his money from where he sold and the price he got from the company for the shares to cover the shares he sold for the company. These low-life companies don't care because their based out of country and none of the regulatory agencies have time to check all these crappy stocks so they usually get away with all these shenanigans.
Went a lil off topic there but thats what goes on, the big boy companies are on the bigger exchanges don't play these games, 99% of them i believe because thats where the regulatory agencies focus their attention.
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