Perhaps Shim could be an alternative for you? You'll build the trading and order management logic on top of it. http://trading-shim.com
thanks again guys, this is great to get so much help from the community ! the last website you mentionned contains an interesting page, that lists a lot of software projects : http://trading-shim.com/faq/?other-voices
Hello all, If anyone is interested, I posted a bare-bones example of a system for IB's TWS in python that includes plotting realtime quotes with matplotlib, and does actual trade executions using the world's dumbest trading logic. It's a trend following moving average system that generates a great deal of whipsaws. The purpose was only to show the mechanics of how to use the TWS API. This simple code can be used as a basis for experimenting with trading ideas or as a help file if one doesn't want to use python. Warning: Python can be addicting! It is less than 300 lines. I posted to this discussion group: http://groups.google.com/group/ibpy-discuss/topics Or the file directly: http://www.mediafire.com/?yzydmwzzzwm Best Regards
Since we are on the topic might as well ask here since you guys have a better idea than me How much would a programmer charge to write a program for trading --moderate level I would say nothing too complex. Something based on candlesticks--I started another thread here for Candlesticks automated trading also. If the moderators want to, they can delete that thread. In seattle, if that makes any difference.
I got some requests for more info so I thought I should make a follow up post. For those who like python, this is a great option. This will work with both the TWS demo and the simulator. It is absolutely a minimum system: you have to watch the TWS window to see the trades and profit/loss. (Mostly loss with this trading logic, lol) You will need to install ibpy and matplotlib to make this work. You should already have Tkinter installed since it comes with python by default. I've been using ibpy to connect to TWS and really like it and the simplicity of python. Ibpy completely replaces those official api's. The author, Troy Melhase wrote a java to python translator that makes ibpy from the IB java api code automatically. He is one smart guy. So this is based on the java api and I go to that info on the IB website when I need to figure out some detail because it follows that completely. For those just getting started, there are some good example files in the ibpy documentation that will help you get going that won't be as complicated as this file with the Tkinter gui code, the ibpy code, and the matplotlib code all mixed together. http://ibpy.sourceforge.net/