Online Brokerage With API? 30
palpatine asks: "I'm looking around for an Internet brokerage that offers a programming interface. Instead of using the Web and forms to make and track orders, I'd like to be able to have some sort of library with functions for making and tracking orders as well as getting real-time quotes, securely over the Internet. Does anyone know of such a place?" Is there such a beast?
Island? (Score:1)
Are you fucking nuts? (Score:2, Funny)
Here's the fucking low down: you are asking for the ability to create your own person, on fucking line brokerage by hijacking another on fucking line brokerage. Straight fucking shit. You are asking for the ability to use a company's product in a manner that is totally fucking at odds with their ability to do this. To wit: Not fucking gonna happen.
No cocksucker worth his salt is going to let this shit fly, and the fucking slashdot audience is probably as far from the fucking authorita you want.
But hey, I could be a total ass rag about this. Look, my fucking four fucking letter word rant ain't fucking flamebait. I'm not going to jerk you off and pat you on the back. I'm giving it to you right on the motherfucking level.
Re:Are you fucking nuts? (Score:2)
I take it you've never heard of using an API which supports authentication? Start an secure connection, here's my name, here's my password, ok well here's a token good only for this session now communicate to me using this token over the secure connection. Duh.
Re:Are you fucking nuts? (Score:1)
This guy - profanity = funny, but not informative.
Island, Redibook (Score:2, Informative)
The big question, though, is how much trading volume you do. To support that type of direct access to an ECN, you need an account with a clearing firm; and they probably have steep account minimums and capital requirements. I doubt if there is anything out there that will let you just open an account for $50,000 and place orders with your own programs. In short, sure it's possible, but it would probably be uneconomical unless you are running a full-time trading operation.
Re:Island, Redibook (Score:3, Informative)
yeah.... it will be called .NET (Score:1)
simple enough, eh? the concept of web services should take care of this nicely.
Reverse Engineering (Score:1)
Google me this... (Score:3, Informative)
There Brokerage Service, however, seems to be geared more towards Order Placement through an ECN. Here are some screen shots [limebrokerage.com] of the GUI that is provided with the API.
Correction (Score:1)
Doh! (Score:1)
Re:Interesting, that's the LimeWire gnutella peopl (Score:1)
i'd love to have something like cybertraderpro (try the free demo - http://www.cybertrader.com/cybertrader/contact_si
silly commentators (Score:1, Interesting)
- There's really no difference between an API and
a web user-interface, except stability.
- Making a screen-scraper is a piss-poor OSS
project, because it would be broken most of the
time because of (1).
-
penetration. The rest of the WebServices market
will be pure SOAP, mostly Java-backed.
If a brokerage made me an API, they'd get my
business in a flash.
nasdaq.com XML interface (Score:3, Informative)
http://quotes.nasdaq.com/quote.dll?mode=stock&p
Re:nasdaq.com XML interface (Score:1)
Re:nasdaq.com XML interface (Score:2)
CastleOnline.Com Used to offer programmatic access (Score:1, Interesting)
And if you are serious about trading, get a brokerage that allows trades through ARCA. This will allow you to place orders with trailing stops. Very handy.
A few options (Score:4, Informative)
MyTrack offers pretty good data although it can lag a good bit behind the marked (5-20 sec) and seems to be mostly unsupported.
IB's data is, well, you wouldn't want to trade off it alone. However the executions are great and their fee schedule is very competitive. Their Java TWS, which runs very well on Linux/UNIX, is somewhat programmable via either a socket interface or Java API.
I haven't worked with the MyTrack SDK for years so I can't comment on MyTrack's performance recently, but their executions were not comparable with other EDAT brokers and barely up to web broker standards when I used them. IB offers pretty good market coverage especially in commodities and options. Currently their API limits executions to their proprietary routing system, the client offers direct access routing to various exchanges. They also offer a much richer API to pro customers although their fees aren't as competitive in that area.
It's also worth mentioning that IB's platform is a bare-bones, no handholding, execution platform. If you want support and fancy tools go elsewhere but their executions and margin policies are pretty good (exchange min. on most contracts). When there is a problem however, you'll be happy to have a backup broker to hedge the positions you hold with IB. They require this in their customer agreement
See ibusers Yahoo group [yahoo.com] and EliteTrader Direct Access forum [elitetrader.com] for more information. I only mention options that are available on Linux/UNIX for retail brokers because thats all I've investigated for my own use. I may post a better summary when I recover from last night..
Re:A few options (Score:1)
The MyTrack API has improved quite a bit from the previous poster's experience, both in featureset and in execution times. Unless there's a network or host problem, you'll receive order executions that can be measured in mere milliseconds, and a real-time market data feed with no delays at all.
The API is fully event driven, not based on client polls, this is the real deal. You get intraday real-time data, full back-office connection for data queries and brokerage operations.
The brokerage operations have also improved quite a bit. The proprietary order routing is still available, but you now have extensive control over order routing decisions based on whatever personality you want to create.
One of the best brokerage features is the capability to operate with their brokerage back-end, but use a simulation account. All function calls behave the same, but you're operating with $100K in play money. This is a must-have to develop and test your code with no risk.
This is not simply a set of silly scripts to run in back of a website, this is an API to build your own application. Current API offerings cover C/C++, Java, and VB. Each of these have example code as well.
Honest opinion - I've got nothing to gain by having anyone sign up.
See the myTrack [mytrack.com] site for basic info including Track Data's [trackdata.com] other offerings. Go to the Pact Consulting [pactconsulting.com] site to download the API for free.
--
Allen Gray
http://agray.com