i have a free account for now. For coding I guess I need one of these (IEX or SIP). Which one I can use with the free account and how to change setting in my account in order to be able to get access?
Thank you so much.
That’s what I’d like to know to
@Robin_Dudley The difference between SIP and IEX data is SIP data is full market real-time data. It’s consolidated by the Securities Information Processors (SIPs) and then disseminated to brokers and data providers. IEX data is real time but only includes trades and quotes from the IEX exchange. Due to licensing, real time SIP data cannot be distributed without a data subscription. IEX data doesn’t have that restriction. There is a bit more on the difference here in the docs.
IEX data should generally not be used for live trading decisions (it’s correct but incomplete). However, IEX data is offered as a free alternative to receive and test real time data while developing ones algo.
Which one I can use with the free account? The only thing a free Basic account restricts is the most recent 15 minutes of data. Anything older than 15 minutes is available with either the Free or Algo Trader Plus subscription. So, if you are doing backtesting or research and analysis, the free Basic plan may be all you need. It’s the same data but simply doesn’t have access to the most recent 15 minutes of data. And actually, depending upon your strategy, maybe 15 minute delayed data would be all an algo requires too.
If however your algo requires real time quotes and/or trades or bars, you need to subscribe to an Algo Trader Plus data subscription. This can be done from the account dashboard under “Plans and Features”.
One note, it’s always a good practice to explicitly specify the feed, for example feed=sip. The APIs will default to a feed but may not be what you expect.
Does that answer your question?