my broker fees are ridiculous - i need help, page-11

"When you go short with them, is that through CFDs?

Is just shorting stocks without CFDs available in Aus?"

I would never touch CFDs, ridiculous product shouldn't even be allowed, CFD's are nothing more than leveraged modern day Bucket Shops, and far worse.

Short via IB you have to be able to borrow the shares from the broker.

However generally I can only obtain shares to short ASX top 50 companies or so, anything smaller and the shares are either unavailable to borrow or too expensive.

I think the smallest ASX listed company I've ever placed a short on was AWE.

US companies Mid Cap plus sized companies, generally have plenty of shares readily available to borrow and at very low rates, except for recent IPOs, especially tech companies.

Also even if I could short penny stocks I wouldn't, far too risky and volatile compared to large caps +

Plus there are inverse ETFs, if I thought Gold was going down, I can either place a short on the likes of NCM. Or the smarter and considerably cheaper option would be to short ETF like NUGT which is a ETF representing a collection of US listed mining companies.

Or short actual Physical Gold ETF like GLD

US Equities I can also hedge the position with the relative Put or Call Option depending on whether main position is long or short, and/or use a ETF for additional hedge.

Thats the problem with bank brokers, not only do they have high fees, but also very limited trade execution options. I think Comsec probably still charge extra for something as basic as a trailing stop loss.

Really is like trying to box with one hand if you can't trade long or short and use ETFs/Options etc as well.



Kat.