Ours is not to reason why, Ours is but to do and die!
Do not concern yourself with things that do not matter. Use it, and if it helps you make better trades, keep using it.
If I am daytrading stocks, or futures, I use it the whole time.
I am with IB, and do not find any problems with $TICK updating in real time with TWS data feed.
You can not follow it blindly of course, but it is a good confirmation indicator, even if a few seconds behind, but as mentioned, I have seen no issues with it when I use it.
J_S
If I am trading it, or using it to inform trades, it absolutely does matter that I understand what I'm looking at.
That said, I am puzzled about the $TICK index compared to price changes on the /ESZ6 (or any other market index).
I have never heard anyone speak of the
timeframe over which this statistic is calculated. Here are my thoughts and concerns.
Some have said that this indicator is instantaneous. I don't believe this can be true.
If it were, you would see
changes in /ESZ6 highly correlated with the $TICK value. However, /ESZ6 doesn't change much when the $TICK doesn't change regardless of it's specific value. When the $TICK stops moving, even when it is
hugely positive or negative, the /ESZ6 barely moves.
Values for /ESZ6 appear to be better correlated with
changes in $TICK, i.e., we see /ESZ6 values move upward as the $TICK moves upward, and vice versa. Even if the $TICK is highly negative or positive, if it's not moving up or down, /ESZ6 doesn't move very much. This strongly suggests that $TICK is determined over some rolling timeframe.
So, what is that timeframe? It might be a rolling 1 second, or 2 seconds or 5 seconds or something else.
If $TICK was instantaneous, /ESZ6 values wouldn't generally change in direction until $TICK crossed over the zero value. Yet, we do not observe this in practice. We see the /ESZ6 move in the
direction of the $TICK movement, regardless of the absolute $TICK value.
We further observe is that, when $TICK reaches a local top or bottom, /ESZ6 doesn't move much further up or further down. It is when the $TICK changes, do we see any marked movement in /ESZ6.
I'm hoping someone can lend some insight.