I have been looking at and using tiki for about 3 years and I have noticed over that time how its application has changed as far as using to time entries and exits for s&p futures...
Basically, the concept is that a +/-22 reading on tiki indicates buy/sell programs are hitting the market. This could also be confirmed with the PREM indicator as there are set premiums/discounts that trigger these programs. In the past, back around 1999-2000, you would typically have 1 tiki or 2 tiki's in a row and price would quickly come off of that level for a few minutes. In a trending market, you might get a number of tiki's(with trend) without any retracement or a number of tiki's (against trend) that would be quickly absorbed by players looking to enter on any counter-trend move...In a trading range environment, tiki's would typically trigger into a resistance/support area and quickly come off with a decent scalping opportunity...
Nowadays, I have been noticing a proliferation of tiki "clusters", where you will have one tiki, then another, and another, and another...sometimes up to 6-7 in a row on a 5 minute tiki chart. Since the markets have been pretty much "one way" in the past two months, it just appears that these tiki programs come into the market and move it to an extreme with little retracement and that all of the momentum comes in with force at one time for about 30 minutes and then prices stall...
I don't want to get too much into this, but just to give some of my observations about how this indicator has worked in recent years..