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Show HN: Stock Trading with Insomnia REST Client and Alpaca API

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Show HN: Stock Trading with Insomnia REST Client and Alpaca API

#1

Post by shift8 »

I've created an Insomnia workspace to make it easier to debug your stock trading code and learn the Alpaca API. You can read about how here: https://medium.com/automation-generation/using-alpacas-stock...

The actual workspace JSON for you to import into Insomnia can be found here: https://github.com/alpacahq/insomnia-workspace

Re: Show HN: Stock Trading with Insomnia REST Client and Alpaca API

#3

Post by gschier »

kaycebasques wrote: post #2

A commission-free trading API? How does Alpaca make money?

Likely the same as similar services like RobinHood. A quick Google suggests they make most of their money on interest from cash sitting around in user's accounts that has not been invested yet.

Re: Show HN: Stock Trading with Insomnia REST Client and Alpaca API

#4

Post by gammateam »

gschier wrote: post #3
kaycebasques wrote: post #2

A commission-free trading API? How does Alpaca make money?

Likely the same as similar services like RobinHood. A quick Google suggests they make most of their money on interest from cash sitting around in user's accounts that has not been invested yet.

And selling order flow

Re: Show HN: Stock Trading with Insomnia REST Client and Alpaca API

#6

Post by dplgk »

gammateam wrote: post #4
gschier wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Likely the same as similar services like RobinHood. A quick Google suggests they make most of their money on interest from cash sitting around in user's accounts that has not been invested yet.

And selling order flow

What is order flow?

Re: Show HN: Stock Trading with Insomnia REST Client and Alpaca API

#7

Post by nodesocket »

I've been playing with the Alpaca streaming API's in Node to get quotes. I have it working, the next step is figure out a trading algorithm.

I am a pretty traditional long term investor, $AAPL, Berkshire, Bank of America, Ford, Amazon, AMD, $SPY, with 10+ years in the market. However with the crazy volatility, I have been toying with the idea of buying ProShares UltraPro Short $SQQQ to hedge my losses on big pre-market open down days. Today for example would have been a good day to own $SQQQ for the day (up 7.3%). Any insight on how to go about this hedge strategy using Alpaca? Can I get pre-market quotes for the Nasdaq?

Re: Show HN: Stock Trading with Insomnia REST Client and Alpaca API

#9

Post by JonasJSchreiber »

gschier wrote: post #3
kaycebasques wrote: post #2

A commission-free trading API? How does Alpaca make money?

Likely the same as similar services like RobinHood. A quick Google suggests they make most of their money on interest from cash sitting around in user's accounts that has not been invested yet.

And by selling info about customer orders to front runners. IIUC, these are high frequency traders who may place similar orders milliseconds in advance of yours then profit from the fact that you have to pay a bit more to fill your order. Full disclosure, I continue to use Robinhood despite this.
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