Alpaca is not a US company. That means if something goes wrong, you will have to run for your money to Japan https://prnt.sc/uqvy0f
This is unacceptable. There no FDIC insurance on deposits and no domestic entity that’s licensed broker!!! Are you joking me???
May just be another MT.GOX…
NO THANK YOU!
The founders have Japanese names, but the company is headquartered in San Mateo, CA and is a member of FINRA. It is incorporated in the U.S. (Delaware). It is registered with the SEC (SEC CIK #0001689386) and deposits are insured to $500K. Some links for additional information are below. I have no relationship with the company myself, but I think your fears are ungrounded.
Hi, thanks for the answer. Problem is FINRA is not an insurance. I don’t see any licensing information about them here in US. No corporate office info. No other valuable information, other than some registered LLC and membership at FINRA. Even that looks sketchy. No customer service, no phone number to call… There is no way I would trust them with even few thousands. There no FDIC or SIPC insurance… If Alpaca runs with investors money or goes belly up, there nobody who will give you your stocks or money back… Correct me if I am wrong.
This article may help with the roles of SIPC and FINRA and the $500K:
“Investor account insurance. Because of SIPC coverage, customers of investment brokerage firms are insured for up to $500,000 in net equity in each account. That includes up to $250,000 in cash balances.” Alpaca do have SIPC coverage according to their website, and this is indeed insurance for deposited funds (not coverage for any trading losses of course … but protection if the firm goes belly up).
Thanks for the answer. If they have SIPC, that’s music to my ears… makes me feel safe… is there a way to verify that? Also what bothers me is there nobody to call or create a support ticket. Do they offer any kind of customer service?
A more detailed description of their filings is here:
You can see that they are a SIPC members here
:
Their business model seems to be focused entirely on the API, and they have a few partners that have developed interfaces to the API that they provide information for on their website. But as far as I can tell this is very much a “do it yourself” platform through their API, and as they grow third parties will likely create more complete interfaces. If I can find some programming help, my plan is to set up my own strategy running from my own “dashboard”, and use the Alpaca API purely as a data source (via Polygon) and trade executer.
Fewww… It makes sense now… Why do they hide all that info and you have to dig all over the web to find that out. I don’t understand that. They are turning business away with that approach. Having no customer service is also a big red flag for many. People trusting Alpaca with lots of money and having nobody to talk to is a big issue. I wish they would have hired some people to answer the chat and phone, at least during business hours. Everything can happen. It’s a software and errors may be a possibility. Nothing is perfect. But otherwise, it looks safe to trade with them…
Hitoshi Harada
Alpaca
217 S B Street Suite #2
San Mateo, CA 94401
Phone: +1.6508638499
eMail: hitoshi@alpacadb.com
Linked In: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hitoshi-harada-02b01425/
Yeah they are legit, I found this on brokers check at FINRA https://brokercheck.finra.org/firm/summary/288202
Alpaca Securities LLC is a member of Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, Inc.
You can check the background of Alpaca Securities on [FINRA’s BrokerCheck]
Alpaca Securities is also a member of SIPC - securities in your account are protected up to $500,000.