Profitseer,
Gaps are not uncommon on intraday 'time' charts, I see them often, so I'm sure they must appear on tick charts also. And they create a gap clearly exceeding the usual difference in the spread. Sometimes the gap is filled, sometimes a gap-and-go occurs. In fact, gaps (well, bigger price changes, really) must be occurring more often than I first realized, since on a candle chart, only gaps that occur exactly at the end of one candle period to the start of the next would be visible. Other 'gaps' would be absorbed within a candle.
Since many candle patterns include gaps, I can see now why some traders are saying that candles are not as useful for day trading. Certainly the hanging man/hammer type candles (that are independant of gaps) would be applicable intraday, but seeing intraday candle patterns which include gaps would seem to be a matter of luck, in terms of that gap happening right at the end of a candle. But maybe a strong but different candle pattern emerges when the 'gap' (bigger price change) occurs within a candle - have to think about that some more.
So given that these bigger than usual price jumps do occur intraday, and that they may or may not appear as gaps, it seems we need to understand why these intraday jumps in price occur, and see if we can apply those reasons to say that gap-type candle patterns are, or are not valid intraday.
I'd be interested first to see if others agree that these intraday price jumps do occur. I see these gaps in larger cap Nasdaq stocks (that's all I trade), and from memory it seems they occur most often during the slower lunch time and during the first 15 minutes after the open.
Some questions for y'all:
Do you see these bigger intraday price jumps? (I mean a price jump of say 0.2 as opposed to a ususal bid/ask spread of say 0.02)'
And do these jumps occur more often at particular times in the trading day?
Though I could speculate (if this note wasn't already getting too long), why do you think these price jumps are occurring?
If we determine they are happening often in the day, and given that it is unlikely to catch a price jump at the end of a candle so its visible, can it be argued that gap type candle patterns are in fact less reliable for intraday type trading?

davez