[ptcman]

Hi.

I've been watching volume bar charts and I have a better view of price swings with this type of charts. My question though is about up and down ticks when using volume bar charts.

If trading a 500 volume bar chart and measure the up and down ticks of each bar, lets say, 300 up ticks and 200 down ticks, indicates of the 500 contracts (volume) traded, 300 made prices tick upwards and 200 made prices tick downwards.

Is this reading correct? I don't know why but this sounds a bit strange.

Regards.

[Tams]

Originally Posted by ptcman »

Hi.

I've been watching volume bar charts and I have a better view of price swings with this type of charts. My question though is about up and down ticks when using volume bar charts.

If trading a 500 volume bar chart and measure the up and down ticks of each bar, lets say, 300 up ticks and 200 down ticks, indicates of the 500 contracts (volume) traded, 300 made prices tick upwards and 200 made prices tick downwards.

Is this reading correct? I don't know why but this sounds a bit strange.

Regards.

why do you want to be concerned with up ticks and down ticks?

who is your broker?
what is your charting program?

I ask, because up tick and down tick have different meaning (definition) to different people (program).

[ptcman]

Originally Posted by Tams »

why do you want to be concerned with up ticks and down ticks?

who is your broker?
what is your charting program?

I ask, because up tick and down tick have different meaning (definition) to different people (program).

Hi TAMS.

I don't receive my data through my broker (IB). I use eSignal for data, and Multicharts has my trading/chart platform.

My idea for up and down ticks is to "know", within a bar" which side won, buyers or sellers? Sometimes, a bar closes at the high, but down ticks are higher than up ticks.

[Tams]

Originally Posted by ptcman »

Hi TAMS.

I don't receive my data through my broker (IB). I use eSignal for data, and Multicharts has my trading/chart platform.

My idea for up and down ticks is to "know", within a bar" which side won, buyers or sellers? Sometimes, a bar closes at the high, but down ticks are higher than up ticks.

are you looking for up tick / down tick? or up volume / down volume?


just want to make sure you understand,
most of the datafeed are aggregated.

eg. IB sends its quotes out every 250~300 millisecond.

if there are 3 trades (ie it should be 3 ticks) during a 300 ms time lapse,
you might only get 1 tick reported from IB.

[ptcman]

Like I said TAMS, I receive my data through eSignal, not IB. Because of that lag IB has on retrieving quotes (especially volume) I was forced to subscribe eSignal data service.

Yes, there is that question of up/down volume and up/down ticks which I continue to have some troubles understanding.

I have a couple of indicators in Multicharts where, for example, if bartype => 2 volume is used for calculations, but if bartype < 2 then ticks is used.

My view is that for a better volume reading when using minute or seconds charts, ticks are more reliable.

My question is if when I'm using up or down ticks am I using volume or the trade count? That's why I'm getting second thoughts when applying the up and down tick to bar volume charts, because a 500 volume bar chart, indicates that during that bar, 500 contracts were traded. So when I request the up and down tick for that bar and receive 300 up ticks and 200 down ticks, what am I receiving?

I can see that every time price move up it counts has 1 up tick and every time it moves down it count has 1 down tick, I have a countdown that does that, but since we are looking at a 500 volume bar chart, are those 300 contracts indicating they were traded upwards and those 200 contracts indicating they were traded downwards, since 1 tick equals 1 trade, which equals 1 contract?

Damn, why such a simple thing becomes so hard to understand?

[Tams]

Originally Posted by ptcman »

...

Damn, why such a simple thing becomes so hard to understand?

... and I haven't even got to the legacy problem yet.

[Tams]

when you create your chart,
from the format instrument window,
under the settings tab,
you have an option to choose "Build Volume On:"

1. Trade Volume
2. Tick Count

[Tams]

get the ebook
EasyLanguage Essentials Programmers Guide

go to

Appendix A
Volume Reserved Words Usage Tables.... pg. 133

read up on the difference between TICKS and VOLUME