Sunday, November 2, 2008

Calling for your ideas on an iPredict API

iPredict is developing an API and we'd like to hear from you if its something you think you might use.

There's a lot of decisions that go into making an API. Our thinking at this point is that for a start a "read-only" API that gives access to raw trading data. You will be able to get price and trade volumes by date and time and by stock. Simple stuff - but useful for setting up alerts and collecting and alanysing data.

The next step will be whether and exactly how to add trading functions to the API. What are the things you'd like to be able to do without having to visit iPredict and use our interface? What do you need in an API to do it?

Please contact me if you'd like to add your ideas into the API development: matt at ipredict dot co dot nz.

2 comments:

PhiRatE said...

You definitely need the ability to obtain historical data, preferably deltas, for a given stock. That way we can make pretty charts.

PhiRatE said...

Ok, I had some time to think about this, I want the following:

rest/stocks
XML output list of currently active stocks, a timestamp, and the current value.

rest/stocks/PM.NATIONAL
XML output, timestamp, current value, midnight high, low, close, volume.

rest/stocks/PM.NATIONAL/daily?start=2008-10-01&end=2008-11-01
XML output, inclusive date range, midnight high, low, close, volume for all closed days so far.

rest/stocks/PM.NATIONAL/movement?start=2008-11-01T00:00:00&end=2008-11-05T00:00:00
XML output, inclusive date-time range. Consists of an initial value, followed by a series of movements:

movement (timestamp, delta)

rest/stocks/PM.NATIONAL/log?start=2008-11-01T00:00:00&end=2008-11-05T00:00:00
XML output, inclusive date-time range. Consists of a series of actions:
Buy entered (timestamp, id, volume, price)
Sell entered (timestamp, id, volume, price)
Trade performed (timestamp, buy id, sell id, volume, price)

The start of the log consists of all untraded buys and sells on the stock at the time of start, followed by the actions as performed up until end.

This set of calls would provide maximum flexibility for those who want to do everything from simple charts through to depth analysis.