Looking for a brokerage with functional, individual API access to, at least, account positions, balances, and equity/fund/bond prices. Used to be happy with TDA, but they got bought by Scwab, whose API has been “pending” for six months.
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Updating in case this turns up in search results. As of July 2024, Schwab’s “end of 2023” individual API still has no expected release date.
I ended up getting an experimental account with Interactive Brokers. Their API talks to client software running on your local machine, rather than directly to their web servers as TDA. This makes it a little easier, because authentication is all handled by the client software, but it also means you have to manually log in through the client, and there is no authentication between client and API. Their documentation and examples are ok, but the framework is a lot more complicated, because it handles stocks, bonds, crypto, commodities, and forex.
I understood that TDA accounts with API would continue to work. Did yours stop working?
I delayed moving an account to TDA with API because I wanted to wait for the first to settle.
As long as it’s actually a TDA account, the API will work. They’re transitioning all those accounts to Schwab, though. Once they transition your account, you no longer have TDA account, so no TDA credentials to authenticate with the API.
Yes but I’ve read that Schwab will have its own API. I read that within the last two months. I’ve also been told as much by a rep, with disclaimers of course. That was a year ago.
Either way, I expect schwab to have an API. Why else buy TD?
I’ve registered on Schwab’s developer site, which has listed ‘individual trader api’ as ‘coming by the end of 2023’ as long as I’ve been aware. They do have a slew of active professional APIs, but those are contract-dependent and not fit for (my) purpose.
I got forcibly migrated a couple months ago, and also expected them just to migrate TDA’s API to their own system, but I’m losing faith in their ‘end of 2023’ promise. I haven’t been able to get any more detail on their timeline/progress, although the developer portal is responsive. It’s frustrating. There’s nothing magical about Schwab’s website, fees, trading, or account services, so if I can manage my frustration and restore my data access by migrating, I’m open.
The options my own search has turned up are Alpaca and Interactive Brokers. Alpaca seems pretty sketchy; still in the ‘startup’ phase. IBKR seems legit, but isn’t one I’d heard of before. I was hoping someone on social media might have had great experience somewhere and be ready to share. Or even that some brokerage might be watching for the opportunity to advertise, even on a community with barely 100 monthly users.
Interactive Brokers is also my next choice. Although, beware that you have to install Java runtime from Oracle in order to be able to log in to they servers. Java runtime environment has seen many beaches of security in the past, particularly the Internet was still in adolescence. Oracle claims to have solved those but this needs to be verified.
I’m waiting for Schwab mainly because, as it turns out, there is magic there. Namely, our assets are protected from online fraud. I’m sure there are limits to that protection. And that protection has applied to their normal online accounts. Will it apply to API accounts? We will have to reread the fine print when it’s final.
Bonus points if it has a debit card. I would totally switch if it meant I could replace my current brokerage, which I use for a checking account as well.
Right now I use a budgeting app (Tiller) to pull balances, but the one I use doesn’t pull tickers (unless i missed something). I think Personal Capital does, but AFAIK there’s no API to pull that data into a spreadsheet. I really don’t like using these third parties, so I would be happy to pay a bit if it meant I could do it directly.