Step 2: After ThinkOrSwim is running, run Excel. In the previous section I talked about my old friends, cells B2 and G2, so we’ll use them in our example. We’re big easy fans so let’s get moving with RTD. What’s the conclusion? DDE may be technically faster but, for simplicity and user-level flexibility, RTD is the way to go. For a non-programmer, RTD is easier to use than DDE. If you want the last price of SPX, you have to completely change what you ask in cell G2.RTD can use explicit data but it can also use “implicit data.” That means you can say, “Hey, G2, give me the last price for the underlying that’s in cell B2.” Better, you can change B2 from RUT to SPX anytime, without doing anything to cell G2, and G2 will return the last price of SPX.Why is that good? Because Excel can make do different things with the live data that will soon be streaming into your spreadsheet. If you want the last price of RUT in cell G2, you need to ask for the last price of RUT in cell G2.
Thinkorswim api how to#
Why would you want to know how to do this stuff? Because you probably have a couple of ideas or questions swimming around. You’ll get an overview of both, you crazy kids, but we’ll focus on the easier.) So, let’s go through a few explanations, show you how to connect the two programs and give a couple examples to get you on your way. ( There’s a harder way, too, that’s not well-documented. Let’s write ( get it?) that wrong! It is easy to have ThinkOrSwim (TOS) stream live data into Excel but it’s not well-documented. Without some experience in programming, however, it isn’t always the easiest way to manipulate real-time data. You can’t beat a spreadsheet for turning big chunks of data into actionable information. Written and contributed by Rich Kaczmarek