We are losing polygon data!? ;/

What’s even worse, the old data source no longer works (at least the API command get_barset fails) and the new source is not yet available. Has the new API been deployed? Are there docs for it? I didn’t see any. So we won’t be able to trade next week?

From the email:

As of Feb 26, 2021 after market hours, you will no longer be able to use your current Polygon.io data feed via your Alpaca API key. However, Polygon.io will provide a 100% discount coupon for March to our users who are using Polygon.io data. You need to take action immediately to ensure you retain your access and will need to create an account on Polygon.io’ website.

Please use coupon code ALPACA during checkout on Polygon.io to claim your free month.

After your free month, you will be charged the regular price for Polygon.io. For the pricing details, please visit https://polygon.io/pricing.

We aim to make the transition as smooth as possible, therefore we will be sharing more information with you about the new features in the upcoming week along with tutorials and documentation.

They’re giving us a month of free Polygon usage, so there’s no reason you can’t continue trading. In the coming week they will give us more info about the new features.

The Alpaca api won’t support Polygon that means we need change our code to support data feed from Polygon directly? That seems like a lot of rework

This is very disappointing news. I had such high hopes for Alpaca. This just adds to a growing list of disappointments.

  • Missing Tax Forms
  • Missing Dividend Payments
  • Forcing margins.
  • Losing Polygon.io data

Etrade is not entirely free. You need to read the fine print. multiple trades in a day and over 30 trades a quarter and you start incurring fees.

However, TD Ameritrade has gone to Zero Commission and they have an API. I am going to start looking at that. I heard the API is difficult so we will see.

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They say we can’t sign up for the new data source until Sat. Feb 27, and the old one ceases to work on Sun Feb 28. So there is ABSOLUTELY NO TIME to make the transition and test the new codes live while the old codes could still do the trading. How kind of them.

What I figured from that email is that you’ll need to pay $49/mo to Alpaca. What you’d pay for Polygon - which is $199/mo if you need a reasonable level of service - will be IN ADDITION to $49/mo.

The Alpaca API still supports Polygon, it’s just getting deprecated. The change is that Alpaca’s key will no longer work as a key for Polygon. All you have to do is use the “ALPACA” code for a free month of Polygon, then in your code replace your Alpaca key with your new Polygon key (I’ve already done this myself). That gives you a free month of data using the same API you’re used to, which should be plenty of time to switch over to Alpaca Pro for $49/month if you so choose.

Yes, I just signed up for Polygon ($199 version), obtained the key, and confirmed that it works as before. Just swap in the new key if you’ve been dragging from polygon already. Beware that the “enter code” field on the Polygon signup page, which will give you a free month at Polygon, is easy to overlook. Make sure you enter it before clicking either of the two offered completion buttons.

I used it the coupon code and they still didnt apply it.

If you’re using the python API (alpaca-trade-api-python) it looks like you just add the POLYGON_KEY_ID environment variable. The package tries to pull your POLYGON_KEY_ID env first if it exists:

def get_polygon_credentials(alpaca_key: str = None) -> str:
    try:
        alpaca_key, _, _ = get_credentials(alpaca_key, 'ignored')
    except ValueError:
        pass
    key_id = os.environ.get('POLYGON_KEY_ID') or alpaca_key
    if key_id is None:
        raise ValueError('Key ID must be given to access Polygon API'
                         ' (env: APCA_API_KEY_ID or POLYGON_KEY_ID)')
    return key_id

I asked about this, and Alpaca’s customer service implied that it will still work on March 1st:

It’s for a free month after signup. So if you signup 3/1, then it would be for March.

Does anyone know how to subscribe pro plan? I cannot seem to find it in the dashboard.

Another question: is there any benchmark done for comparing pro stream data vs. Polygon? Or any data difference itself? And where is the data center for Alpaca? For Polygon, looks like they are co-located with exchanges so it has low latency.

Final question, when will python api get updated? It still uses previous V1 data right now.

Many thanks!

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Does anyone know how to subscribe pro plan? I cannot seem to find it in the dashboard.

They haven’t added the sign up page yet, but it will be located within the dashboard.

Another question: is there any benchmark done for comparing pro stream data vs. Polygon? Or any data difference itself? And where is the data center for Alpaca?

We don’t know much about this yet. Here’s a comment from Polygon’s CEO:

I would love to be of more help here, but I know little about [Alpaca’s] new API at this point. It’s hard to say pros/cons until we know more. The main difference I can see so far is that we offer data back to 2004, whereas their data goes back 5yrs. Reference data and Latencies may also be a factor, but unsure until we are able to test/compare. Sorry!

Final question, when will python api get updated? It still uses previous V1 data right now.

Not sure when, but in the meantime, you can see the changes in the Data v2 pull request. It was last updated a few hours ago.

Thank you so much for the reply!

Can you expand on this?
There are two fees I am really getting pussed about on Etrade: one is the SEC fee that they round up to the penny on EVERY sell transacation. the second is the reorganization fee $38.
I am now aware of fees when you do more than 30 trades a quarter.
Thanks

@Peter have we gotten any new information on where the data center is? This question is indicating the Alpaca data is 20% less trade stream than Polygon, but I haven’t seen anyone from Alpaca comment on this on any forum.

Which Secacus datacenter is Polygon’s?

They are in Equinix – New York (Secaucus) Data Centers NY2 & NY4. https://polygon.io/blog/were-moving-datacenters/

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You can still use the polygon integration in the tradeapi if you have your own polygon api key. Just create a separate api variable with the polygon key as the key id.

Hi, can I ask which host provider service you are using? Equinix seems to be large firms focus on 2b plans.
Thanks a lot!