Alpaca market is a commission-free trading platform that was founded in 2015. Based in San Mateo, CA, Alpaca is regulated by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA). These are top-tier regulatory bodies that ensure investors’ digital assets are safe. As a trailblazer in retail investment technology, Alpaca created their own algorithm with lots of advanced features that make it stand out among its peers. In this case, Alpaca is commission-free, has a solid API trading service, and has no minimum deposit requirement.
How are Alpaca different from other exchanges?
The API stockbroker gives users access to the US stock market, historical data, and fundamental data through their API to allow retail traders to capitalize on the latest technology to learn and automate their trading. This has created a great space for investors to learn how to use API. Their focus on providing a toolkit to enable third parties to build custom trading platforms, powered by Alpaca’s financial transactions, is a game changer for retail traders.
Alpaca’s brokerage service allows investors who only want to buy and sell stocks on the US exchanges commission-free. Even more, benefits can be drawn from the Alpaca platform’s lack of inactivity fee, unlike many other brokerage platforms. This gives investors more reason to use the platform as they can count on reduced trading costs.
Can traders globally use it?
Traders can access Alpaca Market globally, which affirms their mission to bring the power of investing to everyone. While the platform started with an invite-only beta program when it launched its trading API in 2018, the rising community interest has meant that the platform is now giving access to everyone from anywhere around the world. To make it a success, they lifted the $30,000 minimum deposit to allow all non-US customers to fund their accounts with as low as US$1.00. All they require is for new users to provide international KYC to verify users.
How do you trade on Alpaca?
Step 1: Sign up on Alpaca. The first requirement to trade on Alpaca is to create an account. You can either sign up for a live account or a paper trading account to get started.
Step 2: Get an API Key. Once you create an account, log in to view your API key and secret key. You should also be able to see the endpoint used to make calls to the REST API displayed.
Step 3: Install the Alpaca Python Library- Alpaca has a library known as client SDK. This library simplifies the connection to the API. You should be able to install it by typing in “pip3 install alpaca-trade-api” from your command prompt.
Conclusion
Alpaca market is a great brokerage for traders looking to build their own algorithms with its outstanding API tools. It also has low fees, no stock commission, no inactivity fee, and zero deposit fees. However, Alpaca has limited customer support, which is essentially the only significant challenge users experience on the platform.
