hi all, which order execution api/broker would u recommend for a startup algo trading firm? I do not mind subscribing to service as long as within resonable range. We only have startup capital of ~500,000USD. And also our software is coded in Java, we would need coloc services as well. Is there any brokers that will take us? tks!
Could you at least spend 30 seconds thinking what we may need to know? For example * WHAT DO YOU TRADE? * WHAT O YOU CONSIDER HIGH FREQUENCY? That has a HUGH influence on the answers. I take that you are Java users that you are NOT high frequency (i.e. those dudes running active network cards on latency optimized linux kernels). But without even knowing the markets you talk about - any answer is totally moot.
He wants to trade, you know, those markets where you make free money every day without having to invest much in infrastructure. Like, duh!
I think your first mistake is consulting elitetrader. If your legit and have 500k then pay a legitimate consultant.
You might consider using FIX, as it's "broker-neutral". If you get tied to a particular platform, you may regret it later (as did I); even worse can be a broker-specific platform, which you have to toss out if your broker ends up being a problem. That said, broker/platform-specific platforms are probably easier to code in initially (especially if you aren't doing anything aside from sending "simple" orders"); so if you factor in a significant chance of failure (and who shouldn't?), it could be worth it to use one of those initially, then switch to FIX later if needed. It can eat up quite a bit of effort to switch, so keep that in mind as you develop stuff -- e.g.,, by abstracting away the platform-specific funtion calls. Depending on how "trading intensive" your strategies are, you might want look for a DMA solution (sending orders to a specific exchange yourself), so as not to have your orders internalized your broker and/or sent to payment-for-order-flow firms, which may occur depending on their internal policies. Non-DMA "auto" routers that behave as such could significantly impact your profitability; it might not make things easier if your broker is trading against you, giving you mediocre fills, etc. There is a free FIX system called QuickFix/J that uses Java, although I haven't tried it myself, it might be worth investigating. 500000 is probably enough to get a FIX account somewhere.
Sadly they will eat through 500.000 USD in little time. HFT is expensive to set up. And yes, programmers specialized on that exist. It is not like this is not a decent industry. They do not necessarily have anything to do with the trading algo development - but infrastructure, programming, testing.
I am not sure about Java, but for C# you can consider this end-to-end algo trading infrastructure that we use in our own HFT trading http://www.smartquant.com/products.php