People are not really going to go look for a new broker or some other type of account just to protect their shares at this point I am guessing from shorts. The easiest way, as it stated in the article, and is based on what most typical seasoned traders know and have used for years, is simply do what Is suggested to lock your holdings with a sell order. It basically is a legal contractual broker obligation on cash accounts once you put them out for sale that they cannot loan them without breaking contract terms and creating accounting issues. Pretty simple and it works.
The article was written by a very reputable expert in the Financial industry also. But really, most traders already know this. I just think sometimes people forget about this aspect or are new to trading and are not aware of how much of an issue it can become on certain stocks. One of those "you don't know what you don't know" situations. And this is a situation with btcs where you do not want to forget how to lock up shares considering how badly it's being abused currently based on the Regsho flags from FINRA. And by the way, if you have enough assets with Ameritrade in your account you can sign special waivers to basically allow you to short penny stocks up to a certain amount based on worst-case scenario situations on a call and your marginable holdings in the account and assets. Just an FYI. But of course no, they're not gonna do this for someone with a $10,000 account value on non marginable penny stocks because it is too much of a risk for the broker.
But most importantly, everyone needs to understand herethat it's not a matter of whether you can short in your own account or not. That is actually totally irrelevant to the situation. It is a matter of If someone else in that brokerage can who is a customer which in the case of the big brokerages there always is that customer that exists. They will loan your shares contractually without your consent regardless of if you agree with them loaning them or not or if you can or can not short on your account that holds the shares in question if the shares are not locked up. Pretty simple. So ultimately you must lock your shares up or they can end up being used against you and the price of the stock without your knowledge. If you do not believe all this just ask darkpool. He is obviously a lot more in this game day to day then most based on his posting history. GLTAL.
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