Using the $TICK for confirmation

Quote from BricksandMortar:

The tick is an excellent indicator when used with other indicators. Most floor traders use it on the NYSE. There are 3 ways to use it. The first is contra trading. When it hits 1000 + or – then that is a market top or bottom! It’s great during panics. The second way is trend trading. If the market is strong you want to buy when the tick pulls back and vice versa! Buy dips or sell rallies. Finally you can find support and resistant levels. When the market is channeling you can see the tick stops at the same place as the levels in the market. This way is dangerous but it sometimes works real well. The best way I can describe the tick is sort of like the RSI indicator. The biggest problem is it sometimes leads or lags the market.

Ok Bricks I guesss the real question boils down to how do we define a strong market so we can buy or sell pullbacks or a sideways market to fade...I've seen many plus and minus 1000 tick readings that keep going up or down....so what additional filters can we throw at this to fiqure out if it is new buying or selling being initiated or if we have just run out of steam
 
Quote from lilduckling:

TICK indicator can be used in 2 ways..... one is early indicator and other is a rearview mirror.

First off, if using the TICK on 5min or longer time frame, all you are doing is getting a "feel" for the mkt direction. How many times is it hitting the +600 to +1000 upper levels vs the lower levls, and where is it basing... finding support etc. This will generally tell you as an example... if TICK is constantly hitting +600 and finding support at 0 line....... then the wise thing to do is to buy on pullbacks.... instead of shorting. BUT....... this will not help you when mkt reversus and heads the other way.... since there is no gaurentee any conditions will stay constant for very long. If using TICK like this.... you also would generally use its brothers and sisters to confirm mkt direction: I.E. the following:

$PREM
TRIN
Put/call
$VIX

All are generally giving you similar readings on mkt direction.

How i use the TICK to pin point turns in price or mkt direction:

1. I use 1 or 2min time frame on both TICK and price (YM).
2. I WAIT....repeat... I WAIT until price rallies / falls to a support /
resistance area... or moving average. (You pick your fav MA or
MAs) Ex: If mkt eternals are suggesting a bearish day.....
i wait until price rallies to a 10 or 20ma thats sloping down.)
3. I focus on the TICK level in relation to price.

So if TICK just made a new high in the last 10 minutes... i then look at price and look to see if it also traded higher in the last 10 minutes...or 5 minutes..( time not important... whats important is if it went higher in the same manner or strengh that the TICK did.)

So... lets say the TICK just went higher than the last TICK candle it made.... I look to see if price candle also manged to trade higher than its last candle. What happens is when price reaches key levels... an early heads up to what will happen next is to focus on the TICK and price and see if they diversge or stay in sync. So if Price is constantly nibbling the low of day (support are) but TICK is climbing higher and reaching a prior peak....guess what will happen to price when TICK hooks back down and starts to fall to prior level.... price will break support and fall. Think of price as a wagon... and TICK as a mule pulling it...... If TICK is making its way up to a prior high area... but price is stuck near the bottom... then this is a divergence...and when TICK falls....price will fall. Its as if TICK was trying its hardest to pull price up with it....but all it managed was to keep price suspendend in place... so now when TICK begins to come down.......price falls apart. The opposite also happens... if price is at a high level area.... nibbling to make a new high.... and TICK is way on the bottom at (say -400) ... as soon as TICK hooks back up and begins to trade near prior area oh high points.. say +700.. then price will make a new high. TICK levels are not that important for this... what you look for is the mean and support areas. Dont confuse this with trading off the $TICK at extremes....I.E. going short when TICK is at +1000 or going long when TICK is at -1000... thats diffrent technique than what i discussed aqbove.

I tryed to explain it as simple as i could... but its hard to explain it with out charts. This thecnique works great.... when used correctly...(must wait untill price is at key level on intrady chart.... big moves always happen... like a dam bursting.)

Hope this helps.
Great stuff...any chance of you sending us a few charts looking at these various concepts..so far it seems ( and I agree) that the Ticks need to be put in context....like using the market internals ( Trin, Put/call etc)..I would also add to see what the compx and YM are trying to do...especially if you are trading the emini...find out which one is the leader
 
Quote from VSTscalper:

While I used the TICK for some time....you need to be very careful how you use it. The TICK is based on the NYSE and all its stocks. Many use it for the e-mini S&P 500 and the ER. The problem is....there are many more stocks in the NYSE....and while many in the S&P 500 are in the NYSE....this difference needs to be taken into consideration. Also....the ER is based on small cap stocks....not the same as the stocks in the NYSE....which is totally different.

When I did use the TICK....I used the Data only....didn't care about plotting it on a chart. I only needed to Glance at the Data....to see what was happening. Also....I found it best to use the TICK....TIKQ....and the TIKI...."together"....to confirm a Market move. If all three were at a specific level....you could Enter the trade....because....the odds are....it is a Market move. If only the TIKI....for instance....is at a high level....but the TICK and TIKQ are not....then the odds are....it is not a Market move. My opinion is....with Market moves....you have a much better chance of a successful trade.

I use TradeStation....and I believe they have....or are working on....a "TICK" for the ER....but not sure....because I don't use it anymore. They also have the TIKQ for the NQ. And....of course....they have the TIKI for the YM.

My trading....my charts....are much simpler now....don't need all the other indicators. Takes too long to make a decision....when you have too many Indicators and have too much Information to look at. My firm belief is...."Too Much Information"....can be just as bad or worse than not enough information.

VSTscalper

I've read from Raschke that some watch the Tiki's ( i have tried too) and if you see a high Tick reading but the Tiki's are only pushing up at a plus 20 for example then there still may be more room on the upside...so it would be best to see a high tick with a high ( Plus 26 or more) reading in Tiki's...my suspictions are that that this might work better for the YM traders out there...obviously the reverse would be true for the short side
 
Quote from toc:

TICK indicator is good only for scalping on 1 minute or near time frames. On others it is pretty useless.

I'd have to disagree with you on this one as there can be many scalp trades that work out into longer term trades...I like to trade multiples so I would think if someone can effectively scalp with Tick extremes then they should have enough contracts on IN CASE the tick extreme is signifying that the trend is out of ammo and there additional contracts can capture more profits......obviously this assumes that one is a successful scalper with tick extremes and has enough confidence to play multiple contracts
 
Quote from ER9:

Pitbulltrader......adding a chart to help clarify my previous post. hope its clear.

the 5 minute ES is top chart. below it is 5 minute CCI, below that (candlesticks) is 3 minute $tick, bottom is 10 minute CCI.

what you'll notice is a lightly circled tick bar (in center of screen)that broke above its preceding range. what makes that bar important is that it happened after 5 and 10 minute cci bottomed signaling a possible change in momentum and a possible reversal of the trend.

This was a nice clear example and they are usually pretty obvious. But to emphasize i use them in combination with other indicators (CCI). I have never figured out how to use $tick by itself with aany accuracy. Other indicators have been mentioned in the post that may work as well. I personally prefer CCI.

what can be a little difficult is the discretionary aspect. it may seem unclear at first where to decide the current range is and when it is being broken but with alot of screen time just watching (took me months) you get a feel for this and can spot the not so obvious breakouts.

I like what I see ( I think) with this setup....is there any chance you can seperate out the days in the examples? I'm having some challenges lining up the time frames like this...It seems that some could draw trendlines so if the ticks are breaking out to upside of a channel and the market looks like it is bottoming then it is time to enter long and reverse for short trades but again the common theme seems to be that the Ticks are always the secondary or maybe even the last thing many use to confirm there trade....
 
Some additional ideas that I like to use when I am trading outside the first 90 minutes ( which isn't often): These dovetail into market profile concepts so I want take a lot of time to go down that path here...but I find that after a trend day down the first hours high is a good sell point...especially with high ticks and many donot realize just how often we will come back to test the first 60 minutes high or low after it is broken...It is as if the market participants are saying " hey was that 60 minute breakout real?" so they go back and check it out to see if the same people who bought or sold at those levels will step up again...I beleive you can do very well understanding this principle without having to learn all about Market Profile...although it is a great tool////
 
One last thing for now...If the $ticks are based on the Nyse then why don't we hear more about people keying off a price chart of the NYSE....never tried it myself but seems like it might be a good idea especially for those who follow the Trin too which allows a volume component to come into the equation.....
 
Quote from ER9:

Pitbulltrader......adding a chart to help clarify my previous post. hope its clear.

the 5 minute ES is top chart. below it is 5 minute CCI, below that (candlesticks) is 3 minute $tick, bottom is 10 minute CCI.

what you'll notice is a lightly circled tick bar (in center of screen)that broke above its preceding range. what makes that bar important is that it happened after 5 and 10 minute cci bottomed signaling a possible change in momentum and a possible reversal of the trend.

This was a nice clear example and they are usually pretty obvious. But to emphasize i use them in combination with other indicators (CCI). I have never figured out how to use $tick by itself with aany accuracy. Other indicators have been mentioned in the post that may work as well. I personally prefer CCI.

what can be a little difficult is the discretionary aspect. it may seem unclear at first where to decide the current range is and when it is being broken but with alot of screen time just watching (took me months) you get a feel for this and can spot the not so obvious breakouts.

i MAY HAVE BEEN A LITTLE UNCLEAR IN MY LAST REPLY ..I just think it may make for abetter visual if we could see each day blown up a bit more....I understand your circled areas perfectly...I don't use manu indicators but what settings are you using for the CCI? Thanks
 
Quote from pitbulltrader:

Hi Charles...what do you do on gaps up or down as this may prematurely send out a long or a short signal using a crossover...I like the concept though...


PitBull,

I gave up trading the first 30 Minutes several years ago. Many people claim to do well in this time period, but I never did.

I look for the three part wave setups (Swing Wave - Retest - Impulse Wave) after 1000 ET. In addition to the Moving Averages of the TICK, I also have a similar indicator for the NYSE Up/Down Volume Spread Ratio. If the TICK and Volume indicators are pointing in the same direction and the ADX is strong, I look to trade the Impulse Wave (see Attached Chart).

If I do not get a high probability setup in the morning, I will wait until the afternoon session for a trade.

If the day is a narrow range day, indicated by a low ADX, I will not trade that day.

Charles
 

Attachments

I just started to look at TICK last ~ 5 days and managed it now to include it in my TS on friday. I coded some study from my observations, here a TICK scalper on 1 min YM, signals taken only from TICK extremes, 10 point target and stop, timestop after 15 min, this is just meant as a study not a tradeable system, but such play seems to work in lower volume rangebased marked, of course I expect other rules in trend/momentum...
 

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