Trading with REST

Many brokers and exchanges can nowadays be accessed online with a REST API that communicates with plain-text HTTP requests. The days of awkward proprietary broker APIs are coming to an end. This article is a step by step instruction of implementating a REST API interface in C for connecting a trading system to the Bittrex cryptocurrency exchange. It’s for the Zorro platform, but the principles are also valid for other exchanges and platforms. The C code for a basic REST API implementation is relatively short and straightforward. Continue reading “Trading with REST”

Binary Options: Scam or Opportunity?

We’re recently getting more and more contracts for coding binary option strategies. Which gives us a slightly bad conscience, since those options are widely understood as a scheme to separate naive traders from their money. And their brokers make indeed no good impression at first look. Some are regulated in Cyprus under a fake address, others are not regulated at all. They spread fabricated stories about huge profits with robots or EAs. They are said to manipulate their price curves for preventing you from winning. And if you still do, some refuse to pay out, and eventually disappear without a trace (but with your money). That’s the stories you hear about binary options brokers. Are binary options nothing but scam? Or do they offer a hidden opportunity that even their brokers are often not aware of? Continue reading “Binary Options: Scam or Opportunity?”

Dear Brokers…

Whatever software we’re using for automated trading: We all need some broker connection for the algorithm to receive price quotes and place trades. Seemingly a simple task. And almost any broker supports it through a protocol such as FIX, through an automated platform such as MT4™, or through a specific broker API. But if you think you can quickly hook up your trading software to a broker API, you’re up for a bad surprise. Dear brokers – please read this post and try to make hacker’s and coder’s lifes a little easier! Continue reading “Dear Brokers…”