Do you think its possible or whether its in the pipeline to create a public Freetrade API in order to access information to make custom calculations for price analysis etc.
I think I’ve just found the answer to my question on another Topic.
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An API is coming in the medium term according to the roadmap along with dividend info. It doesn’t mention whether it’s a public API however
Curious to see if Freetrade would consider becoming like Monzo in its approach of being a financial hub to investing?
So whilst you can buy shares using Freetrade, Freetrade could set up a platform where you can also do P2P lending (through other providers), access alternative savings products, and critically see (in open banking style through an API), what shares you have held in other accounts / in particular with workplace pensions etc.
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Myself and roughly fifteen of my fellow developers have been interested in getting into trading for a while, and we’re interested in Freetrade, but it’s seeming unlikely as we aren’t able to interact with any form of API to automatically execute trades with Python. I’ve suggested Python as it is easy to learn, and it is not suitable for high frequency traders (HFTs) so your servers won’t be overloaded by HFTs. To ensure that the app is still simple, maybe you could generate an API key in settings, so that newbies don’t find it too complex. There’s evidently demand for it, so it would be nice to have this by Q4 of 2020 at the latest.
In case you wouldn’t be willing to do this, would it be possible for users to create their own APIs to interact with yours, like Robinstocks for Robinhood?This wouldn’t mean much work would need to be done on your part in terms of creating a Python module. I’d see it as a win-win. I am really interested in Freetrade, especially as Robinhood UK has been scraped, but I’m reluctant about it for now, as there is no algotrading support. Another person has written about algotrading, but I’m bringing it up again to imply that there is HUGE demand for this amongst novice investors who are programmers, or who like it.
Here are some of the benefits of automated trading.
• Greater returns as bots can watch the markets all day every day, whilst humans cannot do this. Bots can execute a trade immediately, reducing the latency and delay, meaning that you get the best price.
• Bots have no emotions nor bias, so human fear and greed don’t affect your trades.
• More data can be processed and monitored in a smaller period of time, so when triggers are met, a trade is executed. Humans need to live, eat, drink, sleep, work repeat, meaning that you can’t monitor the markets all day every day; bots can. A bot can capture 4.2x more opportunities. Humans tend to monitor the markets for 40 hours per week, but bots can do the same for 168 hours.
My other request would be to allow paper trading so that I can get a feel for how the app works before making a decision as to whether or not Freetrade is right for me. Furthermore, we could also test our algorithms with a paper account before implementing it in real life, thus, reducing risk.
Why do people desperate for an API always seem to suggest that there is massive demand for it? Apart from a couple of threads on here I’ve not seen most people asking for it!
However there is a simple solution ie use the voting system (you’re probably better off tagging onto an existing voting thread than starting from new so you maximise your chance of getting votes).
As an aside I’m not sure that algo-trading is really the prime goal of FT given that they are explicitly trying to get people to invest for the long term.
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Agree with your point. I think that this should be either a paid feature or part of FT plus to encourage more serious usage
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I’m willing to work supportively with all members who don’t see why this is necessary. Personally, I believe that there is definitely demand, as does @changc, given that there are over 140K members of the algorithmic trading community on Reddit, as well as 30K members of the AlgoTrading101 course. Furthermore, 80% of all trades are now automated, according to the ICE, the company that owns the NYSE, thus, implying that there is a lot of demand for this feature. Whilst Freetrade is supposed to be simple, which I believe is your main concern, it is pretty much the only option now that Robinhood has cancelled/scrapped its UK launch. Many thanks for your comments. Please reply should you have further concerns.
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I assume (given the language) that you’re specifically referring to Alpaca?
For what it’s worth Alpaca is awesome and integrate with lots of brokers already. I’m sure you saw the cofounder turn up on a rival brokers YouTube video series? And…yep… you can integrate the Alpaca API with that broker. No surprise.
Also worth looking at Tradier.
That said…just make use of the existing integrations… they are sufficient already.
Re: Python. Your choice of language is your choice of language. You’re coding against an API. Use whatever you want to use. No need to specify.
I think asking the question is valid. I think the response that this is quite niche is true.
Alpaca doesn’t accept UK residents, so that’s a no-no, but cheers for your contribution. Still though, there aren’t any options in the UK, so it would be nice if Freetrade could break the mould here. Robinhood, which is the company that likely inspired Freetrade, allows algotrading, so surely Freetrade could at least publicise the API endpoints so that us savvy can make bots to invest their money
I’m more of a long-term investor, but I really don’t have the time to be monitoring things like my portfolio that often as I have many other important things to do, so I’m coding a bot to invest money over the long-term - holding stocks for years at a time. I get that Freetrade is mainly aimed at traders, as per the Freetrade naming, but I’m looking at their ISA for my retirement.
Yet again, thank you for your comments.
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To add to the previous comment that I’ve written, there are existing integrations, but they’re only for Americans, so they are useless to me.
I’ve used ProQuant before which links to some other UK brokers. It’s quite euro based.
Somebody has created a Web Freetrade, surely they are making use of API calls?
Edit: This may reveal some useful info:
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Most of us would rather have control over the source code to customise it than use a retail product - I want to make my own propietary product, not use one that’s in the cloud.
Furthermore, you can’t link ProQuant to Freetrade. You can only link it to cryptocurrency wallets, so that’s useless.
Will definitely look into this. Thanks.
Still though, it would be nice if Freetrade could launch an official API for Python that would allow me to make my own investing algorithm. Does any member of staff have any information about this?
If you end up talking to @changec, can you remind them that they still haven’t posted the survey where 80% of new investors wanted a trading bot? We were keen to read it but they only posted for one day and never returned 
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Believe it or not, I’ve heard about that, and it’s true - although the figure is actually more like 70%! I’ll try to find it and I’ll attach it here.
It was part of an academic research paper. Sadly, I can’t attach it here though, as it is pay-to-read and I don’t want to violate copyright laws.
70% of a sampling of over 20,000 new retail investors (NOT traders), as in, holding stocks for longer than two quarters (half a year, or six months), want some form of automated trading (trading bot).
This is very useful for my project. I think that this thread has met its aim! Five golden stars to you!
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Does anyone know if this is still in the pipeline as a planned feature? Thanks 
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