FXCM Upgrades API Tech Aiming at Algorithmic Traders, Institutional Clients

Online foreign exchange and CFDs trading brokerage FXCM (NYSE:FXCM) has just announced the rollout of the latest set of upgrades to its API solutions. The offerings are targeting algorithmic traders, technology and cloud providers and institutional clients.

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The API Technology Solutions Suite is a powerful suite for traders of all calibers and is instrumental to the brokerage’s institutional offering.

Upgrades are spread across the system with three major links receiving new functionalities and improved latency. FXCM has published some numbers about its API connection speeds.

Algorithmic Traders

FXCM’s solution for algorithmic traders is based on its own Marketscope Indicore solution which is catering to the most common API needs of algorithmic traders. The application can be used for backtesting and strategy optimization as clients develop their strategies.

Customers of the application have access to about 15 prebuilt open source strategies and 53 indicators. FXCM is also providing its algorithmic trading clients 40 months worth of free data on over 80 instruments, with market, limit and stop-limit orders.

All the clients of the company need to have is an account, including a demo account with no minimum balance requirements. To use the application algorithmic traders need an IDE or text editor that runs LUA (i.e., SciTE).

Technology and Cloud Providers

Technology and cloud providers that are working with FXCM and its clients have access to the company’s proprietary ForexConnect and also Java software developer kits (SDKs) designed to suit the needs of higher level technologies. The solutions allow the implementation of rates and account information and the ability to send or modify orders.

Once again there are no limits to the size of accounts that have access to the aforementioned APIs, with full availability of trading orders and access to historical Forex and CFD data.

FXCM states that ForexConnect is its most robust API, providing traders with the company’s Trading Station Trading Platform Graphic User Interface (GUI). The solution supports multiple languages including C, C++, C#, Java, Visual Basic, and platforms in Windows, Linux, iOS and Android.

For the most demanding applications, FXCM offers its Java API, where developers can create both client and server-side applications. The solution is scalable, light and robust thanks to the implementation of the FIX specification for forex, which is strictly customized for trading.

Institutional Traders

Bigger clients of the brokerage that hold account balances that are larger than $25,000, including money managers, high-frequency trading shops and brokers get access to FIX API, which is the industry’s messaging standard for trading, designed for real-time execution.

The biggest clients of FXCM can access one of the most advanced interfaces, which includes a large amount of pricing data per second, market depth, and the company’s External Messaging Flow (EMF) that enables fast trade confirmations. Clients that are willing to access the solution for institutional traders need to use an IDE (i.e., Visual Studio, Netbeans, Eclipse).