Short selling is a strategy that attempts to take advantage of a falling market. If you think a stock’s price will fall, you may be able to make a profit by short selling. Short selling is borrowing a stock from your brokerage firm and immediately selling it. When you do this, you’re essentially speculating that you’ll be able to buy the stock back at a lower price, replace the borrowed shares, and pocket the difference between the higher selling price and the lower repurchase price.
Short selling can only occur in a margin account that meets the minimum equity requirement of $2,000, and all orders to sell short a security must be designated as such.

To place a short sale you must select “Sell Short” from the “Action” drop down menu in the SogoTrade Trading Center page.  When the order is entered it will be checked against a database to determine the potential availability of shares.  If the shares cannot be borrowed you will see a message telling you that the symbol is not available.
After a short sale is executed you become subject to the risk of a forced “buy-in” if the lender of shares decides to call them back.  If the lender requests that the borrowed shares be returned, SogoTrade must “buy in” the shares, close out your short position, and deliver those borrowed shares back to the lending brokerage firm.  This can happen as soon as settlement date, regardless of your profit or loss on the position or the amount of equity in your account.

The buying power required for short selling is the same as for long purchases.  If you want to short $10,000 worth of stock, you must have buying power of $10,000.  The initial margin requirement on a short sale is usually the same as the percentage of the total amount you would deposit in your account for a long margin purchase.  When you sell short, SogoTrade holds the proceeds of the sale as collateral for the stock loan.  
Established maintenance requirements also apply to short sales. Marginable stocks priced at more than $17.00 per share have a 30% margin requirement when sold short. Marginable stocks priced between $5.01 and $17.00 will have a $5 per share requirement when sold short. Additionally, for all short sale transactions, the account must have and maintain at least $2,000 in equity.  If an account with a short position falls below $2,000 equity, a call will be issued to bring the account to at least $2,000.

SogoTrade cannot anticipate what the "Stock-Borrow" fee will be on a given stock.

A hard-to-borrow fee is charged when you short a position and SogoTrade Inc.'s clearing firm Apex Clearing Corporation does not have the security in its inventory. If there are no shares available in their inventory, Apex Clearing Corporation must go out and borrow that security and a fee for this is charged to Apex Clearing Corporation. The rate to borrow a particular security is subject to change daily and the fee, if charged, will post to your account daily. You can monitor your account for this charge at My Account > Account History > Cash History. The hard to borrow fee is passed through to customer accounts with no markup. You are more likely to be charged a hard to borrow fee when short selling a thinly traded security.

Finally, if you open and close a short stock position intraday, you will not be subject to a fee. Please call 646-885-6486 with any additional questions regarding hard-to-borrow fees.