UK stock brokers that allow shorting

[bikhod]

Hello

I am looking for UK based brokers that allow short selling. I am used to trading with US brokers (optionsXpress and ETrade) where short selling, limit orders, bracker orders, ... are bread and butter stuff!

Please note that I am not interested in leveraged products (e.g. spread betting, futures, ...). I want a simple UK broker that accepts sterling and allows clients to go long and short.

Does the UK have such brokers?

Thanks!

 

[Mattybuoy]

IB is the only one.

http://www.interactivebrokers.co.uk

 

[bikhod]

Yes, it looks that way.

The trouble is I want a broker with good customer service and in my experience IB are lacking that department.

Thanks for your reply.

 

[Trader333]

in my experience IB are lacking that department.

In what way ?


Paul

 

[bikhod]

In what way ?


Paul

Trying to speak somene is almost impossible.

My last email query was answered after 2 weeks!

I am used to optionsXpress and ETrade - OX has live chat so you get things sorted straight away and ETrade, if you are a Power ETrade customer, will answer within 24 hours.

Even my UK brokers, SelfTrade and IG Index, answer very quickly and handle issues etc promptly.

 

[Trader333]

Trying to speak somene is almost impossible.

I have not found this to be the case and have been able to speak to someone within 30 seconds of making a call.

My last email query was answered after 2 weeks!

I agree some emails do take a long time to be answered. It all depends on what the issue is that you need to have resolved.


Paul

 

[jonboy123]

IB is the only one?

in the uk list on the site....theres only links to buy short for two companies, in europe.......is that it??
or can i short any stock on any uk company?

i know selftrade dont allow it...but they suggested covered warranties to me....
ive just joined hoodless brennan, not sure about them.

 

[jonboy123]

IG markets i think.
Or IG index.
Cant find theire latest info on shorting tho.....

 

[new_trader]

or can i short any stock on any uk company?

Jonboy123, you need to do a LOT of research before venturing into the trading arena. You are asking NEWBIE questions in the wrong part of the forum. Short selling a stock (not via derivatives) means borrowing the stocks from someone who already owns them so that you can sell them. Unless you intend to practice naked short selling which is risky and illegal.

 

[jonboy123]

Jonboy123, you need to do a LOT of research before venturing into the trading arena. You are asking NEWBIE questions in the wrong part of the forum. Short selling a stock (not via derivatives) means borrowing the stocks from someone who already owns them so that you can sell them. Unless you intend to practice naked short selling which is risky and illegal.

look at the thread title.
im asking relevant questions.
i understand the concept.

are CFDs the only way to shortsell in UK?

 

[new_trader]

look at the thread title.
im asking relevant questions.
i understand the concept.

are CFDs the only way to shortsell in UK?

You would not have asked the question "can i short any stock on any uk company?" if you really understood the concept. Put yourself in the place of the broker instead of the short seller. Now, the broker lends stocks out of his/her OWN inventory to a short seller. This carries a degree of risk because a) The Stock broker must BUY the stock in the first place and b) Must be sure the stock is going to be good for a long time in order to make money from lending them out.

Now, considering this, would you buy ANY stock on ANY UK company?

Can you imagine Tesco wanting to sell apples to it's customers just going out and buying ANY apples it finds?

 

[jonboy123]

You would not have asked the question "can i short any stock on any uk company?" if you really understood the concept. Put yourself in the place of the broker instead of the short seller. Now, the broker lends stocks out of his/her OWN inventory to a short seller. This carries a degree of risk because a) The Stock broker must BUY the stock in the first place and b) Must be sure the stock is going to be good for a long time in order to make money from lending them out.

Now, considering this, would you buy ANY stock on ANY UK company?

Can you imagine Tesco wanting to sell apples to it's customers just going out and buying ANY apples it finds?

why give me a lecture when i only want simple answer.
I have found i CAN short sell FTSE shares....via CFD only.
You are saying the opposite to this.
What are you saying?

 

[new_trader]

why give me a lecture when i only want simple answer.
I have found i CAN short sell FTSE shares....via CFD only.
You are saying the opposite to this.
What are you saying?

Are you deliberately being annoying? Thick? Slow?

You Asked if you can short ANY, I repeat, you asked if you can short A-N-Y company....Now you are saying FTSE shares...


Whatever...go make your millions with your CFD's...A fool and their money...etc

 

[jonboy123]

Are you deliberately being annoying? Thick? Slow?

You Asked if you can short ANY, I repeat, you asked if you can short A-N-Y company....Now you are saying FTSE shares...


Whatever...go make your millions with your CFD's...A fool and their money...etc

sigh. dude....im not trying to be annoying. really.
seems like you dont know the answer yourself.
or if you do...your not explaining in simple terms.

are CFDs the only way to short sell uk FTSE shares?

 

[sharkingtrader]

Selftrade is not a reliable online stockbroker. Imagine trying to exiting or buying a trade on equities, CFDs or Spreadbettting. Twice in April 2009 I tried to sell or buy shares and their online system crashed.

Best to go with online stockbrokers specialising in one field or register with more than one stockbroker. Jack of all trades like selftrade are suffering from an inadequate system which can't handle large volumes of trades on a busy day. Don't put your eggs in one basket you are exposing yourself to the operational risk of trading.

Like today selftrade commented on a response:"

10am update. 30 April 2009.

We are currently experiencing system issues resulting in slow response times. Please call our Customer Service Team on 0845 0700 720 and we will capture your orders.

We apologise for this service failure and we are working with our IT partner to resolve this as quickly as possible.

 

[jonboy123]

Selftrade is not a reliable online stockbroker. Imagine trying to exiting or buying a trade on equities, CFDs or Spreadbettting. Twice in April 2009 I tried to sell or buy shares and their online system crashed.

Best to go with online stockbrokers specialising in one field or register with more than one stockbroker. Jack of all trades like selftrade are suffering from an inadequate system which can't handle large volumes of trades on a busy day. Don't put your eggs in one basket you are exposing yourself to the operational risk of trading.

Like today selftrade commented on a response:"

10am update. 30 April 2009.

We are currently experiencing system issues resulting in slow response times. Please call our Customer Service Team on 0845 0700 720 and we will capture your orders.

We apologise for this service failure and we are working with our IT partner to resolve this as quickly as possible.

theyre all the same.

selftrade have the best charting facilities, true?
yeah selftrade trade data is not reliable either, they said theyre haveing problems with their data feed. email response is slow too. but the website is nice.

hoodless today:
CLIENT NOTICE: Please be aware that due to a technical issue, which we are currently working on, some clients may find that their portfolios are not currently displaying information correctly regarding the stocks and cash held on deposit within their accounts. We hope to have this issue resolved shortly.

although hoodless are cheaper with commssions. £10 overall on a full trade.

TDWaterhouse = good in theory, but i couldnt even spend all the money i had deposited!! i had to phone them and make the trade. Ridiculous. ANd the the site doesnt even show my profit and loss some times. Its a mess. Thyere having big website problems.

theyre all the same.

can you recommend any other?

im even having difficulty with IG markets, i cant find the companys i want, but they keep saying they are there.

but the problem with registering with diff brokers, whenn you want to trade, the money may not be in the right broker, and to transfer funds etc could take several days, eg T+3 and then BACS takes like 3 days.
And then they also have sometimes wildy diff quote prices.

 

[jonboy123]

from TDWaterhouse today:

Over the past few months we have experienced unprecedented spikes in activity as a consequence of the extreme market volatility and associated trading volumes. During recent weeks these levels of activity have not only continued to increase but they have done so at a sustained level. Our website performance has been impacted and in turn so have our call waiting times.

Your feedback has been direct and to the point - our platform has not performed to the level you need and have come to expect from us.

That said I know that many of our competitors have also experienced issues and I understand this to be an industry wide challenge.

This is our number one priority and a challenge we will continue to meet head on.

Over the past few days I have posted various messages on our website to keep you informed of our continued effort to improve our website performance and maintain your ability to trade through us.

Rest assured I will keep posting my updates until you are satisfied with our level of performance.

Thank you for your patience and for your continued loyalty to TD Waterhouse.



HOW HARD CAN IT BE?
GET BIGGER FASTER SERVERS. design site from proper reputable web developers.
INCREASE THE SYSTEM RESOURCES.
ONLINE BROKERS ARE WHY WE USE THEM, I DONT WANNA HAVE TO PHONE UP TO MAKE A TRADE.
I OFTEN CANT EVEN SEE MY P&L, so i gotta work it out separately. And even when i was in profit, it was showing up as loss (selftrade)

HOODLESS have been pretty nice. Even though you have to log in every friggin minute.

 

[bikhod]

In the end i went with IB. Not as nice as ETrade US or optionXpress but at least I can short.

 

[jonboy123]

In the end i went with IB. Not as nice as ETrade US or optionXpress but at least I can short.

interactive brokers?
yeah i heard they allowed shorting. (uk stocks too?)
If you wanna short USA markets: check out thinkorswim.

You can short using a CFD or spreadbett also.

 

[SabreTT]

Etrade allow options trading on us etf and also margin accounts ?
Do they time out when its busy I wonder, seems like all the other normal accounts do but since they are a us company maybe not