Lime Brokerage

Chronos.Phenomena · Feb 18, 2011

Can Sterling compete in the same arena?

maxdama · Feb 18, 2011

IB seems to be the only choice.

Chronos.Phenomena · Feb 18, 2011

I already trade trough IB.... Their api sucks (over complex)... Slow data feed I need simple effective (bare bones) api and fast data feed/execution.... Dream on...

maxdama · Feb 18, 2011

Yeah agreed. Lime's API is very nice.

Seems like an obvious business opportunity since IB's API has been "mature" for half a decade.

Chronos.Phenomena · Feb 18, 2011

Is it IB protocol or the API itself which makes it rough... Is there some custom implementation out there?

maxdama · Feb 18, 2011

Only one I know of is Jeff Ryan's IBrokers package for R: http://www.google.com/search?q=R+API+IB

The rest are mostly derivatives of the Java API and have the same design.

It's not just the implementation, the documentation is also lacking and lags the current release.

Chronos.Phenomena · Feb 18, 2011

What about messaging protocol... If it's sound it's relatively easy to develop lightweight api on the top of it?

Is there material difference between lime messaging protocol and IBs?

maxdama · Feb 18, 2011

I haven't looked into it much. You'll probably just end up doing more work. I recommend joining a prop shop. I'm going to stop watching this thread fyi.

ryleg · Feb 18, 2011

Genesis Securities is a very solid alternative with colocation. I'm not sure what their minimum account size is.

Quote from Chronos.Phenomena:

Shame!

What's the best alternative for small accounts (50k)...ideally With same speeds as lime and Java api?

yorkvillecap · Feb 18, 2011

does lime take personal accounts?