@dabear I donāt understand why the questions keep being redirected at us - weāre not the ones conducting an investigation, U.S. regulators are. We currently donāt know when and if the BUY lockup for these instruments will be lifted.
@Obama11 @Zj_9786 If other brokers see increased trading activity now that the instruments are in close-only mode here, it would be a matter of time before theyād be required to place restrictions too.
Hi @David I can see both sides of T212 business requirements and customers requirements but could you possibly expand how the decision is made to suspend/release instruments?
I read that the SEC/exchanges are asking brokers to check/confirm volumes are not out of ānormalā trading ranges but does that mean T212 and other brokers just have to use their own discretion and are monitoring trades more closely now or do the exchanges possibly advise brokers instrument X or Y looks problematic can you hold buy/selling etc? But this should then mean all brokers are under the same restrictions at exactly the same timeā¦others in this thread have said some brokers can trade a particular instrument without issue. Maybe itās a joint decision with brokers & exchanges?
I think the point by @dabear about trading part of the day and then blocking is going to cause issues/pain for many but at the same time how can T212 possibly know what will happen with any particular instrument. I think it just gels for myself that penny stocks are risky and this is just another aspect to trading to be considered now and more-so in the future; but hey Iām just adding my observation - traders are grown-ups & they understand the risks!
I still donāt understand if anyone can enlighten.
Are they asking all brokers to take the same action or have randomly picked Interactive Brokers and specifically said set to close-only?
As Iāve mentioned if you said to every broker right take away the buy button, how are those holding meant to be able to sell if thereās zero buyers?
I assume what they mean to IB was monitor the trades and step in if required.
From my understanding itās only trading212 that has restricted buying pennystocks, every other broker works just fine including interactive brokers which you can still use to buy pennystocks
Well thatās even weirder because T212 are just piggybacking on IB.
If IB havenāt done this and those penny stocks are still buyable on IB then Iām not sure why T212 feel the need to jump to removing the buy button.
Is it because itās easier than monitoring the flow of API calls to IB?
T212 is also such a small fish compared to the whole trading world.
Wouldnāt surprise me, because of no commissions. Easy to buy/sell without having to keep an eye on the costs. Other brokers probably have a limited volume. Also most brokers donāt have OTC stocks available.
Hi guys
As you cutting the buying options than at least keeping eye on the news and keeping adding the new opportunities
Please add SPAC and SPCX
Thanks
If T212 are the only ones being restricted it means its userbase are buying the most Penny Stocks and making them look suspicious.
If most of the userbase complained and went to a Competitor to do the same actions, I am sure that they would need to restrict the Competitor Broker as well and the cycle repeats itself.
For people trying to Recommend Freetrade (usually online and in Discord), they do realise that once Freetrade start executing orders for Penny Stocks the regs will do the same to them, right?
The suspicious activity of Penny Stocks are due to people being on the biggest Broker with Free Commission buying en masse. It will end up as a Merry Go Round if the Userbase moves to different brokers. It ends up meaning that the Regs will retrict every Broker to stop the trades.
It is likely why people try and use more than 1 broker when it happens.
@Venetia1993 Spot on.
Can we copy and paste this every few posts so the bleaters eventually see it?
So thereās no end to this and the only solution is to not buy pennystocks even if you and others see potential in it?
When you say others, you mean a swarm of people that buy on the same day? Triggering the top Brokers to see a potential pump?
There is a guy on Youtube who explained Penny Stocks very well. Once things turn south the Liquidity of those stocks makes it imoossible for everyone to get out with a profit. It is like a crowd of people trying to run out of a foot long door.
People will complain regardless of whether they lost money because T212 couldnāt execute on time or the Broker said āLook these stocks are suspicious due to a mega demand for the stocksā so T212 have to halt buys.
I would recommend having 2 Brokerages for the scenario a stop not trigger the mass purchases on T212.
Yeah but what difference does it make if people buy it on the same day or on different days. What matters is the people see potential in it and are willing to wait and reap the rewards for it. Not all pennystocks are the same, restricting all of them is just a bad look for the company. Nio was also once pennystock and if people had avoided it cause it was a pennystock and āilliquidā they would have missed out on massive amount of gains
I agree that people should be able to buy what they want but this is out of T212ās control if their own Brokers that they use tell them to halt buys.
If everyone wants to try and buy them at other Brokers they can do but it will only happen over there as well once enough people start buying the Penny stocks.
I might be in a minority but I actually like the new measures even if they were actually imposed upon Trading 212.
You have to have accountability and in this game accountability is ā¦ MONEY ! No less. You canāt cover the bet if it goes South, then too bad - you canāt place the bet.
From a stocks investorās point of view it has also made the market less wild. GameStop, HCMC, and others had a lot of collateral damage for other investors like me who werenāt even taking part. When faced with unlimited losses the shorters started dumping their normal holdings and that made most of the market retreat by 20% ~ 30%. And the irony : most WSB participants lost money !
Itās all good as far as I am concerned.
E.
Hello,
Why the Ionix Technology, Inc. (ticker IINX) is banned from buying?
This is PSE but why still restriction from the purchase? This is very unfair for your customers.
https://www.otcmarkets.com/stock/IINX/overview
Thanks,
Iāll refer you back to the original post up top! 
Time for this again methinks!!
I appreciate the update @David
Though, I hate to be āthat guyā, it does leave me with more questions than answers.
There were stocks such as; LLKKF - this company has been trading for multiple years under LKE in the Australian market, but to trade globally had to create a listing on the OTC. The company is the same as any other mining company but early in their process, they are a quality transparent organisation, yet it was in āclose onlyā mode for weeks, which is more manipulative than just halting trading altogether as it forces the share price down - I would assume that would get Trading212 in more risk for encouraging one way transactions - if enough people complained.
I.E. If you only allowed investors to BUY apple and not sell, that is manipulation, I donāt see the difference in the other direction.
The influx of retail investors was sparked by the Pandemic, but brokers in the UK (i.e Hargreaves Lansdown) had 11m customers before the pandemic. You guys are very capable of handling the demand. Is the issue more that the market makers/liquidity partners are losing money?
Transparency is hard commodity to come by, itāll be great if 212 can lead the way in clearly explaining what laws they will breach by just letting people invest in whatever they want to. I will hold my hands up, if thereās a law iām not aware of, but I have tried to look and cannot see one.
Granted if youāre told to halt a stock like Gamestop, thatās understandable. But halting a flurry of OTC stocks is rather unethical, manipulative and suggests the concern is more to the profits of liquidity partners and market makers over your customers.
Appreciate the response!
your concerns are warranted, but I think the crux of the issue is that your interpretation of āmarket manipulationā is too broad. If we look at the Invest and ISA accounts, we can only buy shares, we canāt short, so there is no option to sell what we are not already involved with. that does not however mean we have to buy those shares.
In fact nowhere on T212 are we told what to buy or what to sell. when the ability to buy is removed, that does not in anyway mean they are telling you to sell, just that you cannot acquire more. and this platform does not make up the market, so T212 actions are limited to their clients, not the markets perception. T212 as DMA (direct market access) does not have access to the Market makers, so how is the situation of MMās relevant?
T212 is not altering the appearance of any aspect of the listed shares, they are just acting upon their right as agreed in the terms of service to stop providing access at their discretion.
You canāt judge things by comparing T212 to HL either, they had 11m clients to begin with sure, but T212 had 400k and rapidly grew to 1.4million. not a comparable scenario. the assets held by both brokers, also incomparable. The market access provided by both brokers? again incomparable. the feeās charged by both brokers? the main reason why regulators stare at T212 with more scrutiny.