Instruments (Trading Symbols)

If you automate a trading strategy across different stock brokers, you already know the problem: the trading symbol for the same contract changes from one broker to another. This is mostly true for derivative symbols. Here is an example.

Why symbols differ across brokers

Say the contract you want to trade is a call option of BANKNIFTY with a strike price of 40000 and an expiry date of 30-Dec-2021. The symbol used to identify this contract is different for each broker:

Broker	Symbol
ZERODHA	BANKNIFTY21DEC40000CE
UPSTOX	BANKNIFTY21DEC40000CE
ALICEBLUE	BANKNIFTY DEC 40000.0 CE
FINVASIA	BANKNIFTY21DEC40000CE
AUTOTRADER	BANKNIFTY_30-DEC-2021_CE_40000

If you use these broker-specific symbols in your strategy code, then changing a broker would force you to change the code to match the new broker’s symbol format. To solve this, we built a single broker-independent instrument format (the AUTOTRADER row above).

How does it work?

We use a simple, standard format to build symbols, explained below. You use this symbol in your strategy code. Our system keeps the mappings internally and picks up the broker-specific symbol for you.

You can also search for symbols with our free public tool. See Instrument not found for how to look up the correct trading symbol for the brokers we support.

Now let us understand it starting from code:

placeOrder("PSEUDO_ACC_ID", "NSE", "BANKNIFTY_30-DEC-2021_CE_40000", "BUY", "LIMIT", "INTRADAY", 25, 230.55, 0);

1. The API user uses the broker-independent symbol in their strategy code.
2. Our system checks which trading account is mapped to “PSEUDO_ACC_ID”.
3. From the trading account, our system finds which stock broker it belongs to.
4. The system then looks up the internal mapping table to find the broker-specific symbol.

As a result, changing stock brokers does not require changing instrument symbols in your strategy code. This is part of how AutoTrader keeps your strategy broker independent. To learn more about “PSEUDO_ACC_ID”, see Pseudo account.

Broker-independent symbol format

Type	Format	Example
Equity	SYMBOL	SBIN
Future	SYMBOL_DD-MMM-YYYY_FUT	BANKNIFTY_25-JUN-2020_FUT
Option	SYMBOL_DD-MMM-YYYY_[CE/PE]_STRIKE	BANKNIFTY_28-MAY-2020_CE_25000