On 12/29/05, Charles Ballowe <cballowe / gmail.com> wrote:
> On 12/29/05, Michael Gorsuch <michael.gorsuch / gmail.com> wrote:
> > An idea popped in my head today.  Has anyone ever used a stock
> > investment service that allows you to access an investment API or
> > something like that?
> >
> > It would nice if I could use Ruby to buy or sell stocks in real time,
> > but I do not have any experience in dealing with this programatically.
>
> You'd need real time data feeds as well as a trading API. When I was
> bored and reading about it a while back, it seemed that in order to
> get access to APIs you had to sign agreements and often be a fairly
> large customer of the exchange to get access. Most of the software
> that is given to private investors and day traders uses one api -
> generally not published - to access the brokerage - often custom to
> the brokerage. The broker then has another API into the market. Some
> of the markets use software based on products from TIBCO or other
> messaging software vendors.
>
> I think the short answer is -- if you want to, good luck getting
> access. Really, I'd be happy if I could find a source for a real time
> - or even delayed stock ticker  with an easy API so I could write code
> and just play with simulating trades.

You might find this of interest:

http://rubyquiz.com/quiz41.html