I used the tradier api for a while (with c#) and can offer up the following points:
- Exchanges and instruments are quite limited. Basically US equities. No futures, nothing outside the US. This doesn't seem like an issue until you start to really build out an operation, at which point the last thing you'll want to do is gut your strats from the brokerage. Even if properly decoupled,
really decoupled generally means FIX, and tradier doesn't work with that.
- I think tradier is best suited for low frequency strategies that exclusively deal with US equities.
- It took me ~2 days to get our models wired up to tradier; it's pretty easy. If you can write C# and have ever used restful API's, you're set. You can get a sandbox version set up super quick.
- If you read over the
Order Routing Disclosure, you'll see that 100% of orders are submitted to Knight Capital and Citadel. I'm assuming those are KnightLink/KnightMatch and Citadel Connect, aka HFT dark pools. It's also listed in the disclosure that tradier receives no money from the
orders, but putting my legal hat on I'd be interested to see if that means that there is no money being exchanged at all. Fixed price orders only works if there is a kickback. That might not mean much to the discretionary trader clicking away at his mouse, but for algos that leave signatures the order flow can be (and is) analyzed by those two HFTs. Tradier won't front run you, but the HFTs that are in the dark pool might.
With a little pony piker account this stuff isn't a big deal, except in aggregate. But really tradier isn't offering you anything that you couldn't get from a better broker like IB. I mean honestly I'll wrap a RESTful service around the TWSApi, charge you $3 per order (as opposed to the $4 from tradier), pocket the $2 difference each way (since IB is $1 smart routed), and laugh all the way to the bank.
Between data feeds, high availability, low latency, and the market sucking money from you because that's how it works, I don't understand why anyone would involve a middle man that doesn't really provide any material value in contrast to the fees it charges.
I don't want to completely bash tradier, but you need to really ask yourself what you're doing and where you're going. US equities, low frequency, and minimal pain-in-the-ass factor is what they bring. If the math works for you, then it's a smart decision. But for many it isn't, which is why you see so much love for DMA and shops like IB.
