I have been trying to develop an automated trading strategy for last few months, and I believe I may have found something. This strategy has successfully back-tested in various ETFs, Stocks and Indexes. I am looking to open an account with a broker that lets me automate this strategy. I am thinking that with this strategy I will have round-trip trades every 3-4 days. I do not see any intra-day round-trip ever. Also, I will only be investing in ETFs like SPY, and sector SPDRs. I do have a job and may not have computer access during the trading hours between 9:30 and 4:00. I am thinking about automating this strategy and letting the software do the trades when it sees the proper setup. I can write the code if I have to. I used to be a programmer not a long time ago. Actually, I have been writing C# code for last few months to come up with the trading stretegy. My question is: Where should I open my brokerage account? I have Scottrade account already, but I do not believe they can provide what I am looking for.
Interactive Brokers has an API that is used by automated traders. Read about it at http://www.interactivebrokers.com/en/p.php?f=api&ib_entity=llc For an open source Java ATS that uses the IB API take a look at JSystemTrader http://code.google.com/p/jsystemtrader/