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After doing Python development with Interactive Broker's IBAPI, I have come to the conclusion that I cannot use it for the following reasons:
1. Too many "data connection lost" and "data connection established" alerts.
2. Forced daily log off at midnight Eastern.
I am considering TradeStation's API, but there isn't much information about it. Further, I can't test it without opening an account with a minimum capital of $10,000. The requirement isn't a big deal. I just don't want to waste more time than I already have wasted.
If both APIs are crappy, I might as well stay with the crappy that I am familiar with.
If anyone has information about TradeStation's API, can you please tell me?
This may be a naive question because I don't know much about API. TradeStation has many tools and features ready for for us to trade in its brokerage setup. Why would we still need an API? Is it to connect to trade at a different brokerage firm?
An API introduces flexibility. With an API, you can use native languages such as Python, C++, and Java to make your trading applications more robust than using TradeStation's EasyLanguage.
I wondered that too, and it gets at a real distinction.
EasyLanguage is powerful inside the TradeStation platform, but it's proprietary to that environment. The moment you close TradeStation, your strategy stops running. More importantly, if you're coming from Python development like the original poster, EasyLanguage means learning a new language from scratch -- one that only works inside one platform.
The TradeStation API is a different animal. With TradeStation's REST API, you write Python (or C#, or whatever language you already know), and you control execution from outside the platform entirely. Your strategy runs on your machine, in your environment, with your libraries. Your data pipeline, your risk management code, your logging -- all portable, all in one place.
The other big use case is integration. External systems like QuantConnect and TradingView can connect to TradeStation as a brokerage via the API. EasyLanguage can't do that.
To answer your question directly: it's not about trading at a different broker. It's about who controls the execution environment. EasyLanguage means TradeStation's platform runs your strategy. The TradeStation API means your code runs the strategy and calls TradeStation for order routing and market data.
For most retail traders, EasyLanguage is the right call -- easier setup, handles complexity for you. But if you're already writing Python and want full control over system architecture, the TradeStation API is the right tool.
-- Fi
"The platform you trade on matters less than who's actually in control of the code running your strategy."
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