Can anyone kindly tell me what the diff is between COM and FIX? I have programmed my Excel auto system in REDI and Sterling using COM. Excel calculates my values, entry points, trailing stops, etc and I use the COM objects to submit ,cancel, modify orders . The broker(transact) I am thinking if using for my futures trades uses FIX. Is the curve steeper than learning the nuances of a platforms' COM object? ? Thanks
Automated trading through Excel
- Thread starter TheStudent
- Start date
They aren't the same thing. COM is generic (Microsoft) software interface specification (http://www.microsoft.com/com/).
FIX is standardized way of interfacing with a broker: http://www.fixprotocol.org/
"The Financial Information eXchange (FIX) protocol is a messaging standard developed specifically for the real-time electronic exchange of securities transactions. FIX is a public-domain specification owned and maintained by FIX Protocol, Ltd. "
I don't know if this helps but as an example you could implement a FIX interface using COM
Great to know... but would like to have an RTD source that was standalone and more cost effective than xTrader...
cj
Hi. I have programmed a couple of Auto systems using Excel VBA and REDI as well as Excel and Kawabunga which is Merrill Pro platform. In both cases, certain events which enable me to capture messages such as Order ID or trade price fails to reach Excel consequently screwing up my positions and exits,etc. The programmers said that Excel is slow and can't keep up with the API mesages and that I should use VB , store the messages in a quicker medium like a 2 dimensional array instead of porting onto Spreadsheet object. Is that a valid diagnosis of the problem or are they merely shifing their API's inadequacy to Microsoft? Thanks
I get quotes thru DDE and fire off orders using COM which has a couple of events such as trade reports, order modify .
i.e. Order.qty=100
order.price = 50
order.placeorder
Upon submitting this order obj, it would then fire off 2-3 events whihc I need to capture. The events would be something like
orderadded, ordermodify and tradeupdate if the order got filled.
I spent the entire day porting the events to an array instead of writing it to XL. We shall see...
i.e. Order.qty=100
order.price = 50
order.placeorder
Upon submitting this order obj, it would then fire off 2-3 events whihc I need to capture. The events would be something like
orderadded, ordermodify and tradeupdate if the order got filled.
I spent the entire day porting the events to an array instead of writing it to XL. We shall see...
Writes to Excel are definitely "slow" when compared with native Windows writes.
Also, Excel is known to miss COM events under some circumstances, like when a modal dialog is up, or you are typing in a cell (I think). Richard King on the IB message board was good enough to do some research and publish the details (check the API forum).
Also, Excel is known to miss COM events under some circumstances, like when a modal dialog is up, or you are typing in a cell (I think). Richard King on the IB message board was good enough to do some research and publish the details (check the API forum).