# Error in alpaca-trade-api-python

**URL:** <https://forum.alpaca.markets/t/error-in-alpaca-trade-api-python/726>\
**Category:** Alpaca Integration Applications\
**Created:** [February 2, 2020, 6:14am UTC](https://forum.alpaca.markets/t/error-in-alpaca-trade-api-python/726 "2020-02-02T06:14:17Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Kay9003](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/848f3c/32.png) [@Kay9003](https://forum.alpaca.markets/u/Kay9003)\
**Post date:** [February 2, 2020, 6:14am UTC](https://forum.alpaca.markets/t/error-in-alpaca-trade-api-python/726/1 "2020-02-02T06:14:17Z")

</div>

Installed alpaca-trade-api-python using pip3 and tried running one of the place order examples posted under the API documentation and got these errors:

File “alpaca-trade.py”, line 5  
SECRET-KEY = “kJ/UM8hGCaDc7f86Hkf9YLAu66A0fiifdndaLwmf”  
^  
SyntaxError: can’t assign to operator  
callie@DESKTOP-B3QDS5B:/mnt/c/Documents/codewall/Trading/Alpaca$ python3 neworders.py  
Traceback (most recent call last):  
File “neworders.py”, line 1, in   
import alpaca\_trade\_api as tradeapi  
File “/usr/local/lib/python3.6/site-packages/alpaca\_trade\_api/ **init**.py”, line 1, in   
from .rest import REST # noqa  
File “/usr/local/lib/python3.6/site-packages/alpaca\_trade\_api/rest.py”, line 12, in   
from .entity import (  
File “/usr/local/lib/python3.6/site-packages/alpaca\_trade\_api/entity.py”, line 1, in   
import pandas as pd  
File “/usr/local/lib/python3.6/site-packages/pandas/ **init**.py”, line 55, in   
from pandas.core.api import (  
File “/usr/local/lib/python3.6/site-packages/pandas/core/api.py”, line 24, in   
from pandas.core.groupby import Grouper, NamedAgg  
File “/usr/local/lib/python3.6/site-packages/pandas/core/groupby/ **init**.py”, line 1, in   
from pandas.core.groupby.generic import ( # noqa: F401  
File “/usr/local/lib/python3.6/site-packages/pandas/core/groupby/generic.py”, line 44, in   
from pandas.core.frame import DataFrame  
File “/usr/local/lib/python3.6/site-packages/pandas/core/frame.py”, line 88, in   
from pandas.core.generic import NDFrame, \_shared\_docs  
File “/usr/local/lib/python3.6/site-packages/pandas/core/generic.py”, line 70, in   
from pandas.io.formats.format import DataFrameFormatter, format\_percentiles  
File “/usr/local/lib/python3.6/site-packages/pandas/io/formats/format.py”, line 48, in   
from pandas.io.common import \_expand\_user, \_stringify\_path  
File “/usr/local/lib/python3.6/site-packages/pandas/io/common.py”, line 3, in   
import bz2  
File “/usr/local/lib/python3.6/bz2.py”, line 23, in   
from \_bz2 import BZ2Compressor, BZ2Decompressor  
ModuleNotFoundError: No module named ‘\_bz2’

I’m running Ubuntu 16.04

This if the file I’m running:

import alpaca\_trade\_api as tradeapi

# not working

# place new orders

api = tradeapi.REST()

# Submit a market order to buy 1 share of Apple at market price

api.submit\_order(  
symbol=‘FELPU’,  
qty=100,  
side=‘buy’,  
type=‘market’,  
time\_in\_force=‘gtc’  
)

# Submit a limit order to attempt to sell 1 share of AMD at a

# particular price ($20.50) when the market opens

api.submit\_order(  
symbol=‘AMD’,  
qty=1,  
side=‘sell’,  
type=‘limit’,  
time\_in\_force=‘opg’,  
limit\_price=20.50  
)

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![kris](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/forum.alpaca.markets/kris/32/163_2.png) [@kris](https://forum.alpaca.markets/u/kris)\
**Post date:** [February 2, 2020, 8:36am UTC](https://forum.alpaca.markets/t/error-in-alpaca-trade-api-python/726/2 "2020-02-02T08:36:07Z")

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use google youll find an answer

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Brian\_Devereaux](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex020/user_avatar/forum.alpaca.markets/brian_devereaux/32/574_2.png) [@Brian\_Devereaux](https://forum.alpaca.markets/u/Brian_Devereaux)\
**Post date:** [April 9, 2020, 8:48pm UTC](https://forum.alpaca.markets/t/error-in-alpaca-trade-api-python/726/3 "2020-04-09T20:48:55Z")

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client\_order\_id = ‘AAPL001’  
api.submit\_order(‘AAPL’, 100, ‘buy’, ‘market’, ‘day’, client\_order\_id=client\_order\_id)

try this. the difference I see is you are specifying symbol = ‘blah’. the module doesnt say to do that except for a few of the optional extras like client\_order\_id. Im not a python expert, but i believe the order you put those items into the function matter so that AAPL pairs with symbol automatically.