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So, in other words, if you want cash quickly, you can borrow against an asset? (In this case, the unsettled proceeds of the stock sale.) Good news: you can do

• Animats 4y ago
  No, the broker is borrowing against their own assets. They already did the transaction. They just haven't been paid for it yet. It's their accounts receivable problem, not the customer's. That's what it means to be a broker, rather than an exchange. Since brokers usually have transactions flowing in both directions, it's usually a wash.
  • SilasX 4y ago
    Except that’s not “what being a broker is”, because not all brokers offer that, and not to all clients. And if you can remember back to your original comment, you were calling exchanges sleazy for not having insta-withdrawal (which they can’t in the regulated markets because of settlement time), and now you recognize this is a service provided by brokers as an abstraction on top of the actual exchange, not what said (non-shady) exchange actually offers. Furthermore, the broker is taking a risk by extending that credit. If it were riskless, there wouldn’t be the 2 day settlement period or the requirement to post collateral (whose necessity everyone accepts with an eyeroll at those who don’t get it on the Robinhood/GME threads).