Market Data Snapshot API

The Market Data Snapshot API gives you on-demand access to ElectronX market data over a single REST endpoint. Each request returns a point-in-time snapshot as a JSON payload: you choose what kind of data comes back with the channel parameter, and you set the scope with the product_ids parameter. This guide covers how the endpoint is structured, how to authenticate, what each channel returns, how to read the timestamps, and how to work with republished ISO prices. It is written for a developer or quantitative user who wants to pull ElectronX market data into their own tools.

What this API covers, and what it does not

The API is backed by the same market data source as the ElectronX trading interface, and it covers all seven supported ISOs: ERCOT, PJM, CAISO, MISO, SPP, ISO-NE, and NYISO. Real-time, day-ahead, and settlement prices are available across the relevant channels.

The API returns market-wide data only. It does not expose account-specific information. Open orders, executions, settlements, committed collateral, positions, and cash balances are not available through this endpoint. In other words, this is a market data feed, not a drop copy of your own trading activity. If a drop copy is something you need, contact your ElectronX Market Operations representative to discuss it separately.

How the snapshot model works

Each request returns a single snapshot: the state of the requested data at one moment in time, rather than a continuous stream. To keep a view current, poll the endpoint on whatever cadence your use case calls for.

Every response carries a response header, X-Snapshot-Age-Ms, that reports the age of the returned snapshot in milliseconds. It is the most direct measure of how fresh a response is relative to the moment you made the request.

Endpoint

The endpoint is available in both the Beta and Production environments. All requests are GET requests, with parameters supplied in the query string.

Environment	Endpoint
Beta	https://beta.electronx.com/api/v1/mkdata/snapshot
Production	https://trade.electronx.com/api/v1/mkdata/snapshot

Parameters are supplied in the query string:

?channel=CHANNEL&product_ids=PRODUCT&api_key=YOUR_API_KEY

Authentication

Requests are authenticated with an individual API key, supplied as the api_key query parameter. Each key is tied to a specific user and is generated in the ElectronX trading platform. Append your key to the end of the request URL:

...&api_key=YOUR_API_KEY

Throughout this guide, YOUR_API_KEY is a placeholder. Replace it with the individual key issued to you. See examples in the Worked examples section below; see Getting access for how to obtain your key.

Request parameters

One thing worth internalizing early: channel and product_ids behave differently. You can name many products in one call, but only one channel. A request for the order book across ERCOT and PJM is one call; a request for the order book and the ticker is two calls.

Channels

Set the channel parameter to one of the following values. The description explains what the channel returns and when you would reach for it.

Product scope

The product_ids parameter accepts a comma-separated list at three levels of granularity.

Supported ISOs: ERCOT, PJM, CAISO, MISO, SPP, ISONE, NYISO.

A contract id encodes the product and its scope. Reading the example above: BFUT100 is a Bounded Futures contract whose bounded-range ceiling is 100 (the CAISO Standard variant), CAISO is the ISO, HB_SP15 is the hub, 260628 is the date in yy-mm-dd form, and 08 is the hour ending. Binary Options use the BOPT prefix in the same positional pattern.

The numeric suffix on a Bounded Futures symbol is the ceiling of that contract's bounded price range, and the ceiling differs by ISO. Some ISOs also append an ISO-unique character after the ceiling when the same ceiling exists on another ISO. If you are mapping symbols programmatically, treat the suffix as the ceiling for that specific ISO's variant rather than a fixed value across the board, and use the per-ISO product specifications on the products page as the reference for exact symbols and bounds. The floor is a separate value, set per ISO and per variant, and is not encoded in the symbol; on some variants it is below $0, so a symbol that shows only a ceiling does not imply a floor of $0.

Reading timestamps and time zones

Time appears in more than one place in the responses, and the fields do not all mean the same thing. Reading them correctly is the difference between a snapshot you can trust and one you misinterpret.

Two time fields on order book data

An order book (level2) response can carry two time-related values:

• event_time sits on each individual bid or ask update. It is the time that quote occurred in the matching engine.
• timestamp is the time that contract's order book last changed. In a single call spanning multiple products, each contract carries its own timestamp rather than one shared value.

Because timestamp reflects the last change to the book, it behaves differently by contract. On a thinly quoted contract, the timestamp can look old even though the response itself is current: it simply means the book has not changed since that time, not that the data is stale. On an actively quoted contract, the timestamp updates continuously. To judge how fresh a response is relative to your actual request, use the X-Snapshot-Age-Ms response header rather than timestamp.

Note that timestamp carries a different meaning on the physical channel, where it identifies the delivery interval a price applies to. See Response fields below.

UTC versus node-local time

All timestamps are in UTC, indicated by the trailing Z.

One set of fields is the exception, and it maps to delivery hours. A contract's delivery references, hour_ending and hour_ending_date, are in the node's local time, not UTC. Each instrument record carries node_timezone so you can line them up.

For example, an ERCOT contract shows node_timezone America/Chicago, hour_ending 17, and an expiry of 2026-07-05T22:00:00Z, because 5:00 PM Central in July is 22:00 UTC. The same hour ending on a CAISO contract, where node_timezone is America/Los_Angeles, has a UTC expiry two hours later, reflecting Pacific time. Read the delivery hour in the node's local time, and read the expiry timestamp in UTC.

Working with the market_trades channel

Unlike the point-in-time channels, market_trades returns a trailing window of recent executed trades rather than a single current value. The exchange keeps the newest trades per market, up to 5,000 trades or the last 48 hours, whichever comes first, and returns them one set per market. A request at ISO granularity returns multiple sets, one per market, and some may be empty, so iterate over every set in the response rather than assuming a single set.

Each set carries a complete_since timestamp: the point from which every trade in that market is present in the snapshot. Trades are identified by trade_id, so if you combine a snapshot with a live feed, deduplicate on that value.

Each trade in a set carries the following fields.

Working with the physical channel

The physical channel republishes ISO system prices. A single request returns multiple price series in one response, for example day-ahead, real-time, and settlement prices, with each row tagged by a variant field. To use one series, request the channel and filter the returned rows by their variant value. For day-ahead prices, for example, keep the rows where variant is DA24.

Response fields

Each row in a physical response carries the following fields.

Price variants

The physical channel returns the following price variants.

Variant availability by ISO

Not every variant is published for every ISO. DA24 and SETTLE60 are available across all seven ISOs. Real-time prices are RT5 for every ISO except CAISO, which publishes RT15. The others are ISO-specific, as shown below.

Worked examples

Example: retrieving day-ahead prices

Request the physical channel for the ISO you want, then keep the rows where variant equals DA24:

copyhttps://trade.electronx.com/api/v1/mkdata/snapshot?channel=physical&product_ids=ERCOT&api_key=YOUR_API_KEY

A day-ahead row in the response looks like this:

copy{
  "market": "ERCOT",
  "listing": "HB_HOUSTON",
  "variant": "DA24",
  "timestamp": "2026-09-14T08:00:00Z",
  "recorded_at": "2026-09-13T17:58:23Z",
  "price": "24.60"
}

Retrieve the current order book for ERCOT and PJM

Because product_ids accepts a list, both ISOs come back in one call. As a single request URL:

copyhttps://trade.electronx.com/api/v1/mkdata/snapshot?channel=level2&product_ids=ERCOT,PJM&api_key=YOUR_API_KEY

The same request, with the parameters shown separately:

copyGET https://trade.electronx.com/api/v1/mkdata/snapshot
  ?channel=level2
  &product_ids=ERCOT,PJM
  &api_key=YOUR_API_KEY

The same request in Python 3

copy#!/usr/bin/env python3
import requests

r = requests.get(
    "https://trade.electronx.com/api/v1/mkdata/snapshot",
    params={
        "channel": "level2",
        "product_ids": "ERCOT,PJM",
        "api_key": "YOUR_API_KEY",
    },
)
print(r.json())
print("X-Snapshot-Age-Ms:", r.headers.get("X-Snapshot-Age-Ms"))

Replace YOUR_API_KEY with the individual key issued to you by ElectronX.

Response

The response body is a JSON payload whose shape depends on the requested channel. In addition, the following response header is returned:

As a reminder, snapshots may be up to roughly 15 seconds old. Read X-Snapshot-Age-Ms to confirm the age of the data before relying on it.

Getting access

API keys are individual to each user, and each key is specific to an environment: a key generated in Beta authenticates only against the Beta endpoint, and a key generated in Production authenticates only against Production. You can hold one active key in each environment.

Generate your key from the REST API Snapshot tab in the Settings area of the ElectronX trading platform, in the environment you are currently in. The tab indicates which environment the key applies to. You can view your key there on demand: the same value appears each time, with a copy-to-clipboard control, and it is available across your devices in that environment.

If you have any trouble accessing the tab or your key, contact support@electronx.com.