>If this makes business sense to mytrack, I >can't see why other brokers will lose money >by offering API to small potato traders >like me. Unfortunately for us, they(the brokers) get to decide what best fits into their business plan. I'm sure if they felt that there was good money to be made in the arena, most brokers would jump in with both feet. I'm betting that brokers probably feel that most traders who are experienced enough to want their own APIs have been in the game long enough to support both equity and volume minimums. I wish it were different. Why not just go with MyTrack? JB
Not mytrack because [for me] they don't offer futures. I wrote already, that I will probably go for IB FIX interface. thanks for your comments Turok.
Turok, thanks for sharing your experience. I am not in the business long enough (1.5 years of active trading) and already have done research on robot trading for about 1 year.... for people with programming background, it just comes naturally. Anyway, this is all waste of keystrokes for now. I am making an OK living at my full time job. Otherwise would just be fine put orders in manually during the trading hours.
OK. now I call upon Def for some help. Would you direct us to the service at IB taking care of FIX interface ? For now I only want to know what type of wan connection is required. Is a 2MB ADSL acceptable ? does it have to be ISDN or T1 ? Is it through internet or through a dial up to IB, or WAN [encrypted packets through the internet] ? neo
I believe you will have to write the whole interface. One of their reps sent me some FIX specifications (confidential stuff, so I won't publish here). So I assume that I will get one of those FIX gateway libraries and somehow put in the necessary fields through libray calls. This is OK, as I am proficient enough in C++ (or Java if I need to struggle through). Have no experience in FIX, so maybe some additional sweat over there also. And I am almost a hardware newbie, have no clue how to set up a dedicated line (not much help from IB anyway). Feel free to email me if anyone thinks we can collabrate in some way.
I am also working on a NAS/S&P e-mini automated trading system and am still trying to evaluate various APIs. I am assuming a 1-3 contract system with minimum account size of $10K. So far I have found four possibilities: 1. IB API/CTC interface. This has already been discussed on this thread and the minimum commission means it is uneconomical to use for initial system. 2. LEO API (http://www.lfgfutures.com/leo/develop/leoapi.htm) is a COM based component within the LEOWEB futures trading front-end. If you use a broker with LEOWEB then you can use this API to automatically send orders. There appears to be no software qualification process to go through as your are just mimicking the manual interface. There are quite a few brokers offering LEOWEB including LFG(www.lfgllc.com) and Cannon (www.e-futures.com). The main problem with the API is that it does not report to your software when trades have filled (or not filled) but it does update an Access database on your PC so your software has to watch this database for changes to determine fills. 3. Pat Systems (www.patsystems.com) have a Trading API that is used by their J Trader software. This API is available to developers after signing an NDA (Non-Disclosure Agreement). You then get the API, write your software then test against their qualification system before being allowed to log on to a brokers execution system. The broker may then run further qualification tests. I am still investigating this route. There are lots of brokers using J Trader including GNI(www.gniinc.com), Man Finacial (www.manfutures.com), Canon(www.e-futures.com), PMB(www.pmbinc.com) 4. EasyScreen (www.easyscreen.com) offer an API called EasyAPI. They will send you details by email. It seems very similar to the LEO API in that it is a COM object embedded in the normal manual interface. They also have a product called EasyCell which allows you to write an order execution screen in Excel using VBA. I have not tried this API as I haven't found a broker offering a trial for EasyScreen. Canon futures say they can provide EasyScreen as a trading interface. As far as I can tell none of the last three options have any charges or minimums beyond those of the broker you intend to use. Hope this info helps and I will update when Pat Systems API arrives. Mike Diplock
Wow Mike thanks for sharing your research discoveries! Certainly an eye opener for me. Did you happen to know which broker you listed (besides IB) offers the cheapest commission per Round Turn? Thanks much!
I have not really investigated commissions in detail as the first decision of what API to use will determine which brokers to investigate further. I believe Canon offer $14 per rt on the web site and PMB have quoted $12 per rt but these may be quantity related.