[Jocelyn]

Originally Posted by GammaJammer »

Not giving up on TL (at least not quite yet)

It’s going to be a shrinking table then Mr GJ. My sister (Anna), Art & the others have drunk up, paid their bill & wandered off into the night.

I agree with Arty & Andre, this joint is aimed more at the equity & ftrs community + the coding & indicator crew, which is fine if that floats your boat.

Nice & friendly for sure, & I’m certain it’ll continue to attract a healthy following. But to be honest as far as the retail offering goes, it doesn’t have anything else out there to beat.

[BlowFish]

I certainly read the links and they did raise a couple of questions tbh as I don't trade FX I just filed them away for now. Seems that it is simply more sensible to stick to an approach that does not rely on volume data with FX or as I think Jocelyn pointed out trade futures.

I do think Market Profile on forex might be interesting. Essentially that uses time as proxy for volume (at a level). It will go in my notebook as a potential area for investigation but is likely just to remain a curiosity.

[walterw]

So far tick data can be perfectly used as proxy volume data for forex, dont forget that activity is volume... and the performance so far for me has prooved to be good... cheers Walter.

[GammaJammer]

Originally Posted by walterw »

dont forget that activity is volume...

No Walter - it isn't. It might work for you to trade this way but be assured - the statement you made here in reation to FX and tick volume is utterly false.

EUR/CHF trading on EBS right after the oil data was a perfect perfect perfect example of what I'm saying.

Price was 1.6323/4. It went 23 Given then 22/23 21/22 20/21 19/20 without a bean going through (my screen shows bid, offer, last given, last paid etc etc). Finally someone paid the 20 offer (for smalls, which was all that was there). So at that point you had a 20/21 market where last paid was 20 but last given was 23!!!!!!!!

In between those two actual trades you had had lots of price updates that would have registered on your tick volume, but that didn't equate to a single euro of business going through.

This kind of thing is why I get frustrated. I try again and again to explain how stuff works, and people just hear what they want to hear.

[cowseathay]

Thanks for that insight gammajammer.

I'm wondering though, if price moved then there had to be trades going through to move it right? Maybe it didn't happen through EBS but someone else?

Or maybe it happened through EURUSD and USDCHF and reflected as just a price movement EURCHF?

Your thoughts?

[cowpip]

Originally Posted by GammaJammer »

This kind of thing is why I get frustrated. I try again and again to explain how stuff works, and people just hear what they want to hear.

Thanks for the example, GJ. There is no possible way you could explain this any clearer.

These other guys need to start using a different term other than "volume." They're using a word that doesn't properly describe what they are measuring. It's like using a thermometer to measure weight.

[cowpip]

Originally Posted by cowseathay »

Thanks for that insight gammajammer.

I'm wondering though, if price moved then there had to be trades going through to move it right? Maybe it didn't happen through EBS but someone else?

Or maybe it happened through EURUSD and USDCHF and reflected as just a price movement EURCHF?

Your thoughts?

Part of the problem is that there is no way to determine how much size was placed in (or taken out) of the market to move price those ticks. On GJ's platform, absolutely nothing went through yet price moved. Yes, somewhere, size was put into the system, but because forex is not centralized, there is no way for anyone to tell how much size went through. It's possible a tiny amount went in during low liquidity to move those pips. It's also possible heavy volume was involved in both directions to move those few pips. The point is, you can't tell. No one can. Thus, any indicator that claims to measure volume is utterly incapable of telling the truth. It isn't volume that these indicators are measuring in forex. It's tick changes and nothing more. Equating tick change with volume can't be done in forex.

[GammaJammer]

Not necessarily - some of the price feeds these days are a bit of a house of cards, so you genuinely can have price updates with little or no accompanying volume. Yank on one thread and something else moves a little, causing in turn something else to move etc.

I'm not saying this happens all the time, merely that the fact that it happens at all, and that I don't have to wait any length of time to find examples exposes the assumptions people are making when using 'tick volume' as any sort of approximation for proper volume are just completely off beam.

And as for eurusd / usdchf yes that can indeed form part of why contributor firms update their eurchf prices, but again, that in itself doesn't mean anything at all in terms of eurchf volume per se. If anything, it adds further to my argument.