Can anyone recommend a broker who allows clients to submit orders via the FIX protocol? I'm having a hell of a time getting IB to set me up with access and I'd like to explore alternatives. Thanks
Some additional info: - I'm a small fish... trade 50k-100k shares /month so I can't afford guys like Lava & NeoNet - Access to a smart router like IB's 'BEST' is a plus
I am currently using IB's Java API via TWS. My strategy trades very sporatically, but when it does it's important that the trades go through or else opportunity vanishes. Over the past year or so I've had too many failures where TWS ends up not sending my order. The latest one has a NullPointerException in the TWS log file. These failures are not reproducable and probably due to poorly written multithreaded Java code inside TWS. By analyzing the logs I've also noticed that there is some kind of symbol lookup/handshake going on in TWS before the order is routed out. I'd like to eliminate this as well. At this point, I've gotten my code speaking FIX pretty well. I just need to find someone who will take my order flow and not charge me thousands of dollars.
Maybe I'll check out MB Trading... I was scared off because of this thread: http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=102412&highlight=mbtrading Some more negatives: 1. They don't list connectivity to BATS, BTRD, or EDGX on their commission page 2. The $4.95 MBTR commission plan sounds extremely shady (click "Read More"). 3. Their servers seem to be located in California. I'm sensitive to the extra CA<->NY round trip that this is going to cause. 4. They may only pay 1.5% interest on cash balances (not sure why they list this rate versus the "money market sweep" rate).
Crazy to try the fix route on your budget. Use MB API. Save yourselves months of hassel trying to patch things together!
My code is in Java so I'm not really looking forward to integrating a C/C++ or COM API... that is going to take weeks and I've already got a working FIX engine. IB charges $100/mo for FIX if they'd actually set me up and not ignore my requests. I'll try MB but I've already stated why they are not an ideal choice.
I put an inquiry in to Red Sky and wound up getting an ITG sales guy who said they only open accounts for institutions with at least $50M in assets.
Wow, that's interesting... What are you going to do when time comes to switch brokers? Answer: re-code your code to speak another language... Not mentioning that 99% of all APIs out there suck because it's not a major point of sale for brokers. No, thank you, it's better invest your time once to build a FIX gateway. Quickfix will allow you to make a more or less workable solution in three nights...