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Checklist, in AI in Markets

Market Data Vendor Selection Checklist

The data vendor decision shapes every backtest and live signal downstream, and switching later is expensive. This checklist compares vendors on the dimensions that actually matter for quant work, not the marketing sheet.

12 items. Published May 26, 2026. By AI Fin Hub Research.

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Sections

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Section 1

Phase 1: Coverage and resolution

3 items

Section 2

Phase 2: Data integrity

3 items

Section 3

Phase 3: True cost

3 items

Section 4

Phase 4: Access and licensing

3 items

Tips

Small moves that make the checklist easier to finish

The headline subscription is the smallest line on the invoice. Per-symbol charges, history backfill, and pass-through exchange fees are where the real cost hides.
Survivorship and point-in-time are not nice-to-haves, they are correctness. A cheaper vendor that restates fundamentals will cost you far more in invalid backtests than the savings.
Switching vendors mid-strategy is painful because the data subtly differs. Spend the diligence up front and test a real sample before you build a year of work on it.

Run the numbers next

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    Alpaca vs IBKR vs Tradier vs Schwab vs Robinhood — compare auth, rate limits, order types, market data, MCP, and fees before wiring a line of code.

  • Directories Finance MCP Directory

    Security-graded catalog of finance MCP servers — Alpaca, Polygon, Databento, IBKR, Tradier, Tiingo, NautilusTrader. Scope, auth, idempotency, transport.

  • Playgrounds Order Book Replay Visualizer

    Drop a Level-2 snapshot CSV and replay the book snapshot by snapshot. Animated depth bars, best bid/ask, spread and imbalance. Understand microstructure before.

Sources

  1. Advances in Financial Machine Learning , Marcos Lopez de Prado, Wiley (2018)
  2. Survivor Bias and Mutual Fund Performance , Edwin J. Elton, Martin J. Gruber, Christopher R. Blake, Review of Financial Studies (1996)

Keep the topic connected

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  • Learn Survivorship Bias

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  • Learn Look-Ahead Bias

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  • Checklist Broker API Integration Checklist

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