For a little more context, you can read my last article Some Context which will help you understand why I've made the choices I have.
The first problem I have come up against on my journey is deciding on an exchange I can use to accomplish my goals. Ah yes, my goals... We haven't covered that yet.
An iOS native application or suite of tools that work in conjunction to combine the best features of multiple exchanges while being programmatic, support algorithmic trading and utilize BOTH traditional stock market assets in fractional shares as well as crypto currencies.
I absolutely love the idea of financial market automation and algorithmic trading. There are several exchanges that provide tools for placing extremely complex order types, some that allow the creation of trading bots that follow specific parameters and even some that integrate pretty well with APIs to make automation even easier. All these platforms have their own Pros and Cons however the largest setback is none of them really offer ALL the features I want to put into place.
The exchanges:
- Not available in the US other than Binance.US which only offers a fraction of what traditional BINANCE offers as an exchange. Binance does have an API and allows the features I'm looking for however Binance.US does not, it is difficult to work with and they have ZERO US equities available. It is a Crypto ONLY exchange.
- Shares a LOT of the same features as Binance, offers a much larger range of cryptos and pairs and even has an API you can interact with. Again, no US Equities are available which is a must for the features I want to implement.
Pionex.us - Has a much smaller offering of crypto pairs but has a few tricks up its sleeve when it comes to features. Pionex Bots are the primary method of exchange on their platform. They offer several complex and customizable trading bots that run 24/7 and do so completely free. On the downside they offer ZERO US equities and don't support an API that I can find either.
- Does very well at combining the two worlds of US equities and cryptos, offers a wide range of ETFs, options, fractional trading, and even some pretty complex order types. They do offer API trading and even have a few SDKs you can install for specific languages to make it even easier. There are however downsides such as limited market data, no crypto deposit or withdrawal and the API is a bit confusing to get up and running, more on that later.
- Extremely popular exchange for retail investors. They offer a huge range of US equities, ETFs, options and crypto. If we sideline all the issues that plgued the platform when the meme stocks were at their peak its actually a pretty robust exchange with a very appealing feature set. Lets not ignore the elephant in the room though, Robinhood does NOT have an official API you can interact with. That hasn't stopped individuals from reverse engineering one though. In fact the Robin-Stocks module for Python is an exceptional library with most the features I was looking for. I was certain the search was over and even started a project based on the module, until I got a cease-and-desist letter directly from robinhood. Seems as though they have very strict guidelines when it comes to using unofficial API's, so they ruled themselves out by default.
The Winner:
Alpaca MArkets an API first, developer friendly exchange that supports both US equities as well as crypto currencies. The selection of cryptos is a bit more limited than the rest of the exchanges but their feature set more than makes up for the difference. Their API documentation and community is top notch, and their support team is actually pretty quick and knowledgeable. They support deposit and withdrawal of crypto, dividends on stocks and even offer a paper trading account to test with.
Until I find a better place to build, test and implement my tools I've settled here.
More on Webull:
Their API is actually pretty robust and more than likely would have worked however, if you read my first article you would know I'm developing specifically from iPhone/iPad which limits me to python or JavaScript based on the tools available on that platform. This being the case I had to rely on the Python implementation of their SDK which wouldn't play nice with iOS python IDEs because of the C code dependencies that the SDK relies on. I tried to rip the SDK apart and just use raw HTTP requests but then authentication became a nightmare and I had to pull the plug and move on.
For now, Alpaca meets all my needs on the exchange side. Up next is deciding on a set of tools and a plan on how to implement the features I'm working towards.
