Support for A-share (China mainland stock market) trading integration

[enjoylifesimple]

Summary

Add support for the China A-share stock market (mainland China, typically traded on Shanghai and Shenzhen exchanges) in OpenAlice.

Motivation

A large portion of global equity trading occurs on the mainland Chinese exchanges, and there is demand for trading A-shares within the OpenAlice trading agent. Supporting A-shares would significantly extend the reach of OpenAlice, allowing for users in East Asia and those interested in China equity markets to automate portfolio management, research, and trading strategies.

Proposed Approach

• Research suitable brokers or APIs for A-share access (e.g., Chinese brokerages with accessible APIs or Interactive Brokers with A-share offering if feasible)
• Develop a new broker module for the A-share connector under src/domain/trading/brokers/
• Integrate symbol mapping and data feeds for Shanghai (SSE) and Shenzhen (SZSE) exchanges
• Address differences such as trading hours, order types, currency, settlement, and relevant trading rules
• Optionally provide a demo or mock broker for offline/test development

References

• OpenAlice Preview
• Existing integrations: Alpaca (US equities), IBKR (multi-asset), CCXT (crypto)

Impact

• Users will have more global equity market coverage
• Attracts a broader community in East Asia

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If maintainers are interested, I am willing to contribute or assist in requirements collection and testing.

[luokerenx4]

Thanks for the interest! A-share support is something we've thought about.

China's equity and futures markets form a fairly isolated data ecosystem — different APIs, settlement rules, trading hours, and regulatory constraints compared to the markets we currently support. We do want to cover it eventually, but right now we're focused on stabilizing the core architecture for more universally accessible asset classes first. Once that foundation is solid, we'll expand horizontally into regional markets like A-shares.

If you'd like to contribute in this direction, the most useful thing at this stage would be early-stage research: which Chinese brokers or financial terminals have APIs suitable for programmatic/AI-driven trading? (e.g., API accessibility, data quality, latency, auth model, regulatory feasibility for automated trading). That kind of groundwork would help us a lot when we're ready to build the integration.