November 2024 Summaries

Alpaca has introduced FIX protocol support for order placement and lifecycle management, extending its API offerings to firms that use the financial industry’s standardized messaging system. FIX uses message sequence numbers and bidirectional communication to help clients recover missed messages, maintain synchronized order states, and process order updates and execution reports in sequence, while allowing existing FIX infrastructure to be reused. Alpaca’s FIX API supports fractional and whole-share U.S. equities trading, including market, limit, stop, stop-limit, market-on-close, and limit-on-close orders, along with several duration options and messages for order submission, execution reporting, cancellations, replacements, and cancel rejections. Clients can connect through a private Transaction Network Services connection or through TLS-encrypted internet connectivity with IP whitelisting, while FIX support for options and cryptocurrency is planned for the future.