BMO blocks cannabis short selling 2019-09-05 09:10 ET - In the News
The Financial Post reports in its Thursday edition that retail investors say one of Bank of Montreal is no longer allowing them to short cannabis stocks directly through its self-directed brokerage. The Post's Victor Ferreira writes that four retail investors said they placed calls to the BMO's Investorline brokerage between Friday and Wednesday morning in an attempt to either open a short position on a cannabis company or inquire about how to do so and were turned away by traders. Each of the four Investorline clients said BMO traders would not open short positions on the particular cannabis stock they were interested in. When they asked if that applied to the sector as a whole, they said they were told shorting would not be possible for any cannabis stock. One of the four also attempted to open a short position on Investorline's on-line platform, but said the order was cancelled minutes later in a phone call from an Investorline representative. "They said from a risk perspective, it's too volatile," one retail investor said. The restrictions did not appear to extend to institutional investors who short cannabis stocks through BMO's prime brokerage desk. BMO did not return the Post's requests for comment.