How do you access an OFX server?
"This page, under the ""OFX"" section, has pointers to an OFX 2.0 spec (pdf). You're looking for the info starting at page 18, section 1.2.1: Clients use the HTTP POST command to send a request to the previously acquired Uniform Resource Locator (URL) for the desired financial institution. The URL presumably identifies a Common Gateway Interface (CGI) or other process on an FI server that can accept Open Financial Exchange requests and produce a response. and then shows some examples. The first page linked above also has some python scripts for downloading OFX data from your bank."
You could keep an eye on BankSimple perhaps? I think it looks interesting at least... too bad I don't live in the US... They are planning to create an API where you can do everything you can do normally. So when that is released you could probably create your own command-line interface :) &gt; Turns out inside updates via the SIP are received faster than the prop market data feed, and faster than updates received over an order entry connection. Under these circumstances the street knows a trade occurred before the participants in the trade.  You're saying if IEX is the inside quote you see it disappear on a sip feed before you see it disappear from iex's MD feed? AND if it's your quote, even before you receive the trade report? "As user quid states in his answer, all you need to do is open an account with a stock broker in order to gain access to the world's stock markets.  If you are currently banking with one of the six big bank, then they will offer stockbroking services.  You can shop around for the best commission rates.  If you wish to manage your own investments, then you will open a ""self-directed"" account.  You can shelter your investments from all taxation by opening a TFSA account with your stock broker.  Currently, you can add $5,500 per year to your TFSA.  Unused allowances from previous years can still be used.  Thus, if you have not yet made any TFSA contributions, you can add upto $46,500 to your TFSA and enjoy the benefits of tax free investing. Investing in what you are calling ""unmanaged index funds"" means investing in ETFs (Exchange Traded Funds). Once you have opened your account you can invest in any ETFs traded on the stock markets accessible through your stock broker. Buying shares on foreign markets may carry higher commission rates, but for the US markets commissions are generally the same as they are for Canadian markets.  However, in the case of buying foreign shares you will carry the extra cost and risk of selling Canadian dollars and buying foreign currency.  There are also issues to do with foreign withholding taxes when you trade foreign shares directly.   In the case of the US, you will also need to register with the US tax authorities.  Foreign withholding taxes payable are generally treated as a tax credit with respect to Canadian taxation, so you will not be double taxed. In today's market, for most investors there is generally no need to invest directly in foreign market indices since you can do so indirectly on the Toronto stock market.  The large Canadian ETF providers offer a wide range of US, European, Asian, and Global ETFs as well as Canadian ETFs.  For example, you can track all of the major US indices by trading in Toronto in Canadian dollars.  The S&P500, the Dow Jones, and the NASDAQ100 are offered in both ""currency hedged"" and ""unhedged"" forms.  In addition, there are ETFs on the total US Market, US Small Caps, US sectors such as banks, and more exotic ETFs such as those offering ""covered call"" strategies and ""put write"" strategies. Here is a link to the BMO ETF website. Here is a link to the iShares (Canada) ETF website." I think I get your question, but your wording is throwing a lot of us off. If what you want is a clean, effective and efficient interface over port 80, then USAA.com has done some great usability work. Additionally, they have really done some pioneering work with web services and mobile applications. On top of that, they have excellent document archiving. I can navigate their site more quickly than any of the other I've used. Disclosure: I am working for an aggregation startup business called Brokerchooser, that is matching the needs of clients to the right online broker. FxPro and similar brokers are rather CFD/FX brokers. If you want to trade stocks you have to find a broker who is registered member of an exchange like LSE. Long list: http://www.londonstockexchange.com/exchange/traders-and-brokers/membership/member-firm-directory/member-firm-directory-search.html From the brokers we have tested at Brokerchooser.com I would suggest: Do you know if I can upload files directly to it (I have made html and css files in Notepad++)?  Also do you know if I am allowed to run ads on a site hosted there (I'm intending to use a provider similar to adsense but not adsense)?   Also do you know if I can connect my own domain name to it?    Thank you so much for your help  Regards Birchmark You can get direct market access (DMA) but you have to pay for data, as this is part of the exchanges data plan, and there are plenty of other fees that are passed straight down to you. Your clearing firm also has fees that are passed on to you. In general you are looking at $150 a month on the low side, in data and software fees. If you wanted pure access, NASDAQ alone charges $6,000 a month last I checked. The different routes data routes to the exchange all have different rules, and they give you rebates for some kinds of orders in some conditions.  Brokers nowadays usually assume this responsibility (including collecting the rebates lol), at the very least, and charge an average price for routing your orders, a price that fits into their business plan and their target audience. Hope that helps. #####&amp;#009;  ######&amp;#009;  ####&amp;#009;  [**Open access (infrastructure)**](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open%20access%20%28infrastructure%29): [](#sfw)   ---  &gt;  &gt;In the context of [infrastructure](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrastructure), __open access__ involves physical infrastructure such as railways and physical telecommunications network plant being made available to clients other than the owners, for a fee.  &gt;For example, private railways within a steel works are private and not available to outsiders. In the hypothetical case of the steelworks having a port or a railway to a distant mine, outsiders might want access to save having to incur a possibly large cost of building their own facility.  &gt;  ---  ^Interesting: [^Open ^access](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_access) ^| [^Directory ^of ^Open ^Access ^Journals](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Directory_of_Open_Access_Journals) ^| [^Train ^operating ^company](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Train_operating_company) ^| [^Broadband ^open ^access](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broadband_open_access)   ^Parent ^commenter ^can [^toggle ^NSFW](http://www.np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=autowikibot&amp;subject=AutoWikibot NSFW toggle&amp;message=%2Btoggle-nsfw+ck1ryej) ^or[](#or) [^delete](http://www.np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=autowikibot&amp;subject=AutoWikibot Deletion&amp;message=%2Bdelete+ck1ryej)^. ^Will ^also ^delete ^on ^comment ^score ^of ^-1 ^or ^less. ^| [^(FAQs)](http://www.np.reddit.com/r/autowikibot/wiki/index) ^| [^Mods](http://www.np.reddit.com/r/autowikibot/comments/1x013o/for_moderators_switches_commands_and_css/) ^| [^Magic ^Words](http://www.np.reddit.com/r/autowikibot/comments/1ux484/ask_wikibot/) Since I've been doing this since late 03 I have colo machines in Chicago and NYC, and have direct exchange data feeds etc.  I mentioned in a prior post though, for someone starting out on algorithmic trading, I'd recommend Nanex for tick data and Interactive Brokers for your brokerage account. IB has a robust and easy to use API. It won't let you do the most low latency stuff bc you can't colo at the exchange and have to clear through their order management systems but if you are looking at opportunities that exist in the market in excess of 50ms it's probably a good place to start. If not, go Lightspeed imo, but that'll cost you on the colo/data a lot more. "Yeah, I'm actually working on such a web server... And you're right, it's really an entire platform more than it is a web server (though you can certainly use it as ""just a web server"").  Also, I did loads of testing to see what it takes to prevent adblock from working properly. Avoid the obvious stuff like using standard banner sizes and serving images from a directory called ""ads"" (hehe).  I don't want to give away my secrets just yet but if you too make it your goal to work around adblock you'll find nearly impenetrable solutions in no time :)" "Mint.com uses something called OFX (Open Financial Exchange) to get the information in your bank account. If someone accessed your mint account they would not be able to perform any transactions with your bank. All they would be able to do is view the same information you do, which some of it could be personal <- that's up to you. Generally the weakest point in security is with the user. An ""attacker"" is far more likely to get your account information from you then he is from the site your registered with.  Why you're the weakest point: When you enter your account information, your password is never saved exactly how you enter it. It's passed through what is called a ""one way function"", these functions are easy to compute one way but given the end-result is EXTREMELY difficult to compute in reverse. So in a database if someone looked up your password they would see it something like this ""31435008693ce6976f45dedc5532e2c1"". When you log in to an account your password is sent through this function and then the result is checked against what is saved in the database, if they match you are granted access. The way an attacker would go about getting your password is by entering values into the function and checking the values against yours, this is known as a brute force attack. For our example (31435008693ce6976f45dedc5532e2c1) it would take someone 5 million years to decry-pt using a basic brute force attack. I used ""thisismypassword"" as my example password, it's 12 characters long. This is why most sites urge you to create long passwords with a mix of numbers, uppercase, lowercase and symbols. This is a very basic explanation of security and both sides have better tools then the one explained but this gives you an idea of how security works for sites like these. You're far more likely to get a virus or a key logger steal your information. I do use Mint. Edit: From the Mint FAQ: Do you store my bank login information on your servers?   Your bank login credentials are stored securely in a separate database   using multi-layered hardware and software encryption. We only store the   information needed to save you the trouble of updating, syncing or   uploading financial information manually. Edit 2:  From OFX About Security Open Financial Exchange (OFX) is a unified specification for the   electronic exchange of financial data between financial institutions,   businesses and consumers via the Internet. This is how mint is able to communicate with even your small local bank. FINAL EDIT: ( This answers everything )  For passwords to Mint itself, we compute a secure hash of the user's   chosen password and store only the hash (the hash is also salted - see   http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sal... ).  Hashing is a one-way function   and cannot be reversed.   It is not possible to ever see or recover   the password itself.  When the user tries to login, we compute the   hash of the password they are attempting to use and compare it to the   hashed value on record. (This is a standard technique which every site   should use). For banking credentials, we generally must use reversible encryption   for which we have special procedures and secure hardware kept in our   secure and guarded datacenter.  The decryption keys never leave the   hardware device (which is built to destroy the key material if the   tamper protection is attacked).  This device will only decrypt after   it is activated by a quorum of other keys, each of which is stored on   a smartcard and also encrypted by a password known to only one person.   Furthermore the device requires a time-limited   cryptographically-signed permission token for each decryption. The   system (which I designed and patented) also has facilities for secure   remote auditing of each decryption. Source: David K Michaels, VP Engineering, Mint.com - http://www.quora.com/How-do-mint-com-and-similar-websites-avoid-storing-passwords-in-plain-text" I think he's referring to [NAT-PMP](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NAT_Port_Mapping_Protocol).  NAT-PMP opens a port on your firewall to allow you to access your IoT devices when you're away from home, but the services this exposes may have vulnerabilities that allow attackers to have access to your internal network. If you're willing to use OFX or QIF files, most Canadian banks can spit output more data than 90 days. The files are typically used to import into Quicken-like local programs, but can be easily parsed for your webapp, I imagine. "As far as I can tell there are no ""out-of-the-box"" solutions for this.  Nor will Moneydance or GnuCash give you the full solution you are looking for.  I imaging people don't write a well-known, open-source, tool that will do this for fear of the negative uses it could have, and the resulting liability.  You can roll-you-own using the following obscure tools that approximate a solution: First download the bank's CSV information: http://baruch.ev-en.org/proj/gnucash.html That guy did it with a perl script that you can modify. Then convert the result to OFX for use elsewhere: http://allmybrain.com/2009/02/04/converting-financial-csv-data-to-ofx-or-qif-import-files/" "You can call CBOE and tell them you want that series or a particular contract. And this has nothing to do with FLEX. Tell them there is demand for it, if they ask who you are, DONT SAY YOU ARE A RETAIL INVESTOR, the contracts will be in the option chain the next day. I have done this plenty of times. The CBOE does not care and are only limited by OCC and the SEC, but the CBOE will trade and list anything if you can think of it, and convince them that ""some people want to trade it"" or that ""it has benefits for hedging"" I've gotten 50 cent strike prices on stocks under $5 , I've gotten additional LEAPS and far dated options traded, I've gotten entire large chains created. I also have been with prop shops before, so I could technically say I was a professional trader. But since you are using IB and are paying for data feeds, you can easily spin that too."