Brokerages

Charles Schwab supports cash and margin accounts. To set the account type in an algorithm, see the Charles Schwab brokerage model documentation.

Create an Account

Follow the account creation wizard on the Charles Schwab website to create a Charles Schwab account.

Paper Trading

The Charles Schwab API doesn't support paper trading, but you can follow these steps to simulate it with QuantConnect:

1. In the Initializeinitialize method of your algorithm, set the Charles Schwab brokerage model and your account type.
2. Deploy your algorithm with the QuantConnect Paper Trading brokerage.

Our integration supports authenticating multiple Charles Schwab user accounts, one for each project, with one trading account. If you deploy a second algorithm for the same user, the first algorithm stops. For example, if you authenticate as JohnDoe with trading accounts XXXXX549 and XXXXX725, you can deploy to only one of those. To deploy a second algorithm, you must authenticate as a different user, for example RichardRoe, and select trading accounts associated with it.

Our Charles Schwab integration supports the following asset classes:

• US Equities
• Equity Options
• Index
• Index Options

You may not be able to trade all assets with Charles Schwab. For example, if you live in the EU, you can't trade US ETFs. Check with your local regulators to know which assets you are allowed to trade. You may need to adjust settings in your brokerage account to live trade some assets.

You might need to purchase a Charles Schwab market data subscription for your trading. For more information about live data providers, see Datasets.

We model the Charles Schwab API by supporting several order types, the TimeInForce order property, and order updates. When you deploy live algorithms, you can place manual orders through the IDE.

Order Types

The following table describes the available order types for each asset class that our Charles Schwab integration supports:

Order Type	Equity	Equity Options	Index Options
Market
Limit
Stop market
Market on open
Market on close
Combo market
Combo limit

Order Properties

We model custom order properties from the Charles Schwab API. The following table describes the members of the CharlesSchwabOrderProperties object that you can set to customize order execution.

Updates

We model the Charles Schwab API by supporting order updates.

Handling Splits

If you're using raw data normalization and you have active orders with a limit, stop, or trigger price in the market for a US Equity when a stock split occurs, the following properties of your orders automatically adjust to reflect the stock split:

• Quantity
• Limit price
• Stop price
• Trigger price

Charles Schwab limits order requests (place, update, and cancel) to 120 requests per minute and 4,000 order requests per day. To avoid hitting these limits, design your algorithm to issue orders sparingly.

The Charles Schwab trading for Equity is commission-free. To view the Charles Schwab trading fees, see the Pricing page on the Charles Schwab website. To view how we model their fees, see Fees.

We model buying power and margin calls to ensure your algorithm stays within the margin requirements.

Orders through Charles Schwab do not experience slippage in backtests and QuantConnect Paper Trading. In live trading, your orders may experience slippage.

To view how we model Charles Schwab slippage, see Slippage.

QuantConnect fills market orders immediately and completely in backtests and QuantConnect Paper Trading. In live trading, if the quantity of your market orders exceeds the quantity available at the top of the order book, your orders are filled according to what is available in the order book.

To view how we model Charles Schwab order fills, see Fills.

If you trade with a margin account, trades settle immediately

To view how we model settlement for Charles Schwab trades, see Settlement.

When you deploy live algorithms with Charles Schwab, we don't save your credentials.

You can deposit and withdraw cash from your brokerage account while you run an algorithm that's connected to the account. We sync the algorithm's cash holdings with the cash holdings in your brokerage account every day at 7:45 AM Eastern Time (ET).

Funds are available for API trading 24 hours after the deposit.

The following algorithm demonstrates the functionality of the Charles Schwab brokerage:

// Demonstrate Charles Schwab brokerage functionality with an EMA crossover strategy on SPY.
public class CharlesSchwabDemoAlgorithm : QCAlgorithm
{
    private ExponentialMovingAverage _fast;
    private ExponentialMovingAverage _slow;

    public override void Initialize()
    {
        SetStartDate(2024, 9, 1);
        SetEndDate(2024, 12, 31);
        SetCash(100000);
        SetBrokerageModel(BrokerageName.CharlesSchwab, AccountType.Margin);
        var symbol = AddEquity("SPY", Resolution.Daily).Symbol;
        _fast = EMA(symbol, 10, Resolution.Daily);
        _slow = EMA(symbol, 50, Resolution.Daily);
    }

    public override void OnData(Slice slice)
    {
        if (!_slow.IsReady) return;
        if (_fast > _slow && !Portfolio.Invested)
            SetHoldings("SPY", 1);
        else if (_fast < _slow && Portfolio.Invested)
            Liquidate();
    }
}

# Demonstrate Charles Schwab brokerage functionality with an EMA crossover strategy on SPY.
class CharlesSchwabDemoAlgorithm(QCAlgorithm):
    def initialize(self) -> None:
        self.set_start_date(2024, 9, 1)
        self.set_end_date(2024, 12, 31)
        self.set_cash(100000)
        self.set_brokerage_model(BrokerageName.CHARLES_SCHWAB, AccountType.MARGIN)
        symbol = self.add_equity("SPY", Resolution.DAILY).symbol
        self._fast = self.ema(symbol, 10, Resolution.DAILY)
        self._slow = self.ema(symbol, 50, Resolution.DAILY)

    def on_data(self, slice: Slice) -> None:
        if not self._slow.is_ready:
            return
        if self._fast.current.value > self._slow.current.value and not self.portfolio.invested:
            self.set_holdings("SPY", 1)
        elif self._fast.current.value < self._slow.current.value and self.portfolio.invested:
            self.liquidate()

You must have an available live trading node for each live trading algorithm you deploy.

Follow these steps to deploy a live algorithm:

1. Open the project you want to deploy.
2. Click the Deploy Live icon.
3. On the Deploy Live page, click the Brokerage field and then click Charles Schwab from the drop-down menu.
4. Enter your user name (Charles Schwab Login ID) and press Enter.
5. Check the Authorization box and then click Authenticate.
6. Log in to the Charles Schwab website using the same ID. Select your Schwab accounts to link, then click Allow to authorize QuantConnect access.
7. Click on the Select Account Id field and then click on one of your accounts.
8. Click the Node field and then click the live trading node that you want to use from the drop-down menu.
9. (Optional) In the Data Provider section, click Show and change the data provider or add additional providers.

In most cases, we suggest using the QuantConnect data provider, the Charles Schwab data provider, or both. The order you set them in the deployment wizard defines their order of precedence in Lean.

10. (Optional) Set up notifications.
11. Configure the Automatically restart algorithm setting.

By enabling automatic restarts, the algorithm will use best efforts to restart the algorithm if it fails due to a runtime error. This can help improve the algorithm's resilience to temporary outages such as a brokerage API disconnection.

12. Click Deploy.

The deployment process can take up to 5 minutes. When the algorithm deploys, the live results page displays. If you know your brokerage positions before you deployed, you can verify they have been loaded properly by checking your equity value in the runtime statistics, your cashbook holdings, and your position holdings.

The following table describes the errors that cause an order to be rejected when deploying to Charles Schwab:

security = self.securities[symbol]
# Buy stop above the ask, sell stop below the bid
stop_price = security.ask_price * 1.001 if quantity > 0 else security.bid_price * 0.999
self.stop_market_order(symbol, quantity, stop_price)

var security = Securities[symbol];
// Buy stop above the ask, sell stop below the bid
var stopPrice = quantity > 0 ? security.AskPrice * 1.001m : security.BidPrice * 0.999m;
StopMarketOrder(symbol, quantity, stopPrice);

all_cancelled_orders = self.transactions.cancel_open_orders()
# Wait ~1 minute for Schwab to process the cancellations, then:
self.liquidate()

var allCancelledOrders = Transactions.CancelOpenOrders();
// Wait ~1 minute for Schwab to process the cancellations, then:
Liquidate();

Charles Schwab may also return the following warnings alongside an error. They don't reject the order on their own, so when you see one, check the accompanying error above for the actual cause:

If you need further support, open a new support ticker and add the live deployment with the error.