Gday Daxter. Bro I’m still at work but when I get home I’ll get right on it for you. I’m using the desktop version but it shouldn’t take to long to figure out. The software is a little more complex than MT4 but once you get use to it it’s very versatile. The data feed is brillant. Talk soon my friend
Bob
Had a look bro and it appears that there is only time based charts on the web version. You will need to run desktop to get access to tick charts. Well worth it but. Data feed is very impressive. You will need to find what tick value fits your needs but. The feed is about 2 to 3 times faster than IC Markets and FXCM. I’m Still at 70 ticks but its fast very fast. Might be better at 140 or 210 or 233. Need to play
Many pips this week bro
Bob
Hi Bob,
Thanks for your patience in explaining. I have 1 questions regarding setting the tick chart. How many tick is deem apporiate? 70? 133? How do we determine which is good for us?
And I realised that using 70 ticks, there are alot of ‘box patterns’ being formed. So how do I execute a trade in the sense that how do I pick which box is the best?
Bro, them tough questions. First let me play my get out of jail free card and will see if we can put that into context. Trading PA is purely subjective. On any time frame. What you see will be different to me. We’ll use the same tools, how we apply them is based on our own experience. This is good because at the end of the day you answer to yourself only. I’ve shared the tools I’ve used. How you use them is up to you.
So lets explore your questions.
How many tick is deem apporiate? 70? 133? How do we determine which is good for us?
First, different brokers have different data feeds, my presumption is that it comes down to their liquidity providers. However it’s not that important. Understanding what the box pattern signifies is. At this level we are watching the worlds moneymakers do just that make money. How they do it is way beyond my level of understanding. What I do understand a bit is just like any market place, the buyers always want a better price, the sellers always want more. Through-out the day there will always be points when the buyers aren’t prepared to pay the price sellers want, sellers don’t like the price being offered by the buyers and the price stalls. This is what the box patterns picks up. At tight narrow range where neither buyer nor seller can convince the other to move their way. Theory is that when the price does move it draws players back into the market and the price moves to the next level. We use the 70 tick because it’s fast moving and we see this range form over several bars. Reality is that an engulfing bar pattern on the 133 or 233 tick is just as effective as long as that first bar is 3 pips or less. You might like to go out to 1000 ticks and look for a 5 bar range of 5 pips. It depends on how you read the charts based on your experience. Not how I read the charts based on mine.
And I realised that using 70 ticks, there are a lot of ‘box patterns’ being formed. So how do I execute a trade in the sense that how do I pick which box is the best?
Which box is the right box is up to you my friend. This methodology as well as being subjective is also very discretionary. We rely on a gut feel over a fix rules. This will scare a lot of traders but not us. Because our sole focus is this singular pair and you’ll be spending 2,4,6,8 hrs a day every day watching PA, it’s movements become second nature. For myself, it beats spending hours going though charts. And depending on your level of experience you quickly notice a correlation exist with time and this is where we can enter the market.
The huge advantage we have is we get to practice. Just start in a demo account and start trading. It won’t come to you overnight but after a month things start to make a bit of sense. It’s best if you can set aside the same 2 to 4 hours each and every day. After all it’s the same institutions trading for the same clients at the same time every day.
Hope that helps a little bit.
Best of luck bro,
Bob
Just sat down and down my Sunday arvo work and thought I would share my “Plan” for the week. I do stress this is only a plan. It’s where opportunities might occur. Being able to react to the here and now of market conditions is far more important than trading a plan build on Sunday night with last weeks data.
First an overview, daily chart and Cot.
IMO everything still says bearish although it appears a bit more resistance in the market preventing the price from push down to lower levels. Again in my view price will continue to fall but in sharp busts probably around news releases. In-between we might see the bulls at work opening up long opportunities. Here’s my map for the week. Red blocks around news are no trade times, green is good.
And finally here is where opportunity might come along. Again red for short signals, green are long
Finally, it all means nothing at the end of the day. Trade what the market is telling you. Trade the here and now and never try to predict. Best of luck this week all
Bob
Ok so the weeks off with a bang. Here’s my demo account where I practice. Man wish I had the balls to do this live. A lazy 6% up. This is a 377 tick chart, as I said ProTrader 3 data feed is that impressive I’m drifting out in tick counts.
Only took 1 trade live as per the rules which corresponded to the last on the demo. Lets focus in a bit more
The all important box break in a down trend with market bias. Hows that for KISS. Happy trading all.
Bob
Hi Bob, thanks for putting this info out there - I’d not come across tick charts before. I’ve been profitably trading PA on standard charts using higher time frames so I’ve got a feel for how the markets work. I use inside bar breakouts, so it’s quite similar, really, to using the box breakout. It’s really interesting to me how a lot of the data that can appear rougher on time charts smooths out on tick charts.
As an example here’s a 5 min chart from earlier showing a head and shoulders pattern:
And now look at it on the tick chart:
What a difference!
I’m going to try this out next week as it looks quite a neat way to trade. Let’s see what happens!
G’day Tweedster. Glad you were able to take something away from this. I think tick charts are a traders best friend and it’s such a well kept secret. Eliminating the effects of volume that distorts lower “time” frames paints a market that is a lot more symmetric. Use all the tricks you have currently and remember the same price action forms all charts. So you are correct in saying an inside candle break on a higher chart is a box break on a lower. Best of luck bro.
Bob
Well I’ve had 3 days of using these tools along with my existing PA knowledge and I’m very impressed! Seeing the order flow is eye opening and really shows the velocity of the market that is hidden on time charts. I’ve been using my time charts (15min + 5min) to set S&R levels then keeping an eye on the tick chart when price gets near these levels for an entry. I’ve then been using my existing PA tools to check confirmation on 5 and 1 min charts.
I think the thing that has been most useful is the stop placement. Putting it at the 2nd most recent swing means that if it hits your stop then you really are wrong about your trade idea. The normal market volatility that could ping your stop, then bounce back in the direction of the trade is eliminated.
Gday tweedster, how did the week finish for you bro. How waz you’re experience with tick charts. Hope all worked well for you.
Hi Guys.
I am still around. My brother has been visiting the last 3 weeks and I have found it very difficult to devote any time to the charts. Last week was a disaster. I was ill disciplined and did not stick to my rules and consequently all trades ended up hitting their stops. However, the previous week, when my brother was on a tour, I entered 6 trades. 4 hit their target, one its stop and one marginally in profit using a trailing stop.
Prior to my brothers arrival I set 70, 250, 500, 1000 and 2000 tick charts on the EURUSD only. I have also added 100 and 200 EMA’s as points of reference. You certainly see some interesting patterns and the price action seems to be more reliable.
I am still looking at the price action in the video I have referenced, but I am also looking at two candles closing above or below the 20 EMA at significant swing highs/ lows for reversal entries.
I will keep plugging away.
Cheers
Daxter
Hi Bob,
Long time kept away from BabyPips. Yeah, I am absolutely agree that tick charts is a well kept secret. To me, TICK charts avoid a lot of speculation and noise of price movement. Usually, all those line in TICK chart are much more get respected if compared to minutes or hourly chart.
Good luck mate.
Hi Bob, thanks for asking. Hope you had a good trading week. I had a great week tbh coming out having made double digit % on a 2% risk with an 83% win rate. I’m very cautious when I trade and require extra confirmation before putting on a position. This means that sometimes even when I see a level I want to trade from I won’t because I don’t see a signal I like. This week I’ve been getting those signals through the BB’s on the tick so that’s caused my volume to increase. My average win rate with my previous PA techniques was about 83% so no change there.
The way I’ve been taking BB’s is to enter at market once a bar has closed outside the range in the direction I want to trade. If a bar closes outside the range in the opposite direction then I class the setup as invalidated. If after the first 3 bar setup the price breaks the high or low but closes inside the first 2 candles then I still count it as a valid signal. This has worked well for me so far.
I will continue testing this week as I need to see how things go over a bigger series of trades but it’s looking good so far. Also got the FPAS book so need to finish that this week as well.
Hi Bob,
Interesting. A few things:
Lets see how I go bro,
- From what I have read so far on your post re tick chart trading, you don’t use moving averages and other indicators like RSI, CCI and Stochastic. Is this correct?
I don’t use indicators, I used price action. Support/resistance. Fib retracements and expansions. Donchian channels and Ichimoku. Fundamentals and news. But that’s me bro. The technique I describe in this thread is but one of three strategies I have in my tool bag. I hope to add 2 new strategies this year. Any technique and/or indicators you use are just as valid on tick charts as time-based. Maybe more-so. So your work with MA’s, RSI, CCI and Stoch’s can be applied to tick charts.
- In your opinion, is using tick charts more suited to trading the lower time frames - like the 1-minute?
IMO, any-one using time-frames less than 1 hr in their trading plan can benefit by switching to tick charts.
- Are different time-frames utilized in tick chart trading? For example, in MT4 you have the option to select Monthly, Weekly, Daily and down to 1 Minute.
On tick charts the “time” frame is the number of ticks it takes to form a candle. You can have a 2 tick chart. A 34 tick chart. 100 tick, 200 tick, 233 tick, 500 tick, 550 tick, 1000 tick charts. It’s completely up to you and how things relate back to your trading methodology. But you must remember what a tick is and what it means.
Each tick represent one completed transaction. I sell 1 lot of EURUSD and you complete the transactions by buying my 1 lot. This occurs hundreds of thousands of times every day. If we’re lucky you and I might trade 1 lot at a time. The real players are handing over 5 more probably 10 million dollars cash each and every time. But being a decentralized market, we don’t get to see that volume, we see the completed transaction as a tick. And again because of decentralized you don’t see every transact. The volume of transactions will depend on your brokers liquidity providers which in turn is dependent on their providers as you follow the money makers chain up to the big banks. There is about 10 of them and they set the price and spread. These 10 or so banks handle 90+% of the physical cash transactions that form the total daily volume that is the forex market. Here the USD rules and most tranactions are against that it. So if the bank wanted to buy EURJPY like you and I would they sell their USD and buy EUR’s and at the same time sell their JPY in order to buy back their USD. Thats what we are watching on tick charts. The actions of the real players in the market as it is filtered down though the layers of money makers (liquidity providers) until it reaches you and me through our broker.
So what will be the right tick chart for you, well thats open for experimentation and is whatever works best for you. As I believe you are trading 1min and 5min charts I would suggest this process. Have a look at the average volume on the 1 min chart during the period you wish to trade. Use this as your first tick chart. Then simply multipy by 5 to reproduce the five min chart.
- In you post of 30 August '14, you stated that “3 or 4 candles can form in under a minute”. Please explain. Does this mean that the formation of candles is not dependent on the time frame?
The formation of a tick candle is completely dependent on market volatility. The more players there are in the market the more volatile the market is, the more transactions are made and the quicker a tick candle forms. So during news release when the markets are highly volatile you might see 10, 20 candles form in one minute. During mid Mon morning during the Japan session it might take 20 min to form One candle because there is no market participants and so no volatility.
Is demo / free tick chart software available? If so, please recommend a broker.
IMO, the best (and free) charting software out there is provided by Protrader - limitless trading. They also have an unlimited $100 000 demo account. But you have to search hard to find a broker that supports them to trade live. But that’s ok. This software is produced by a very new player in the market and their target market is the liquidity providers. By providing us the end user with the software free, we can then put pressure on our brokers to adapt it as part of the trading platforms they provide.
Also it has just become accepted practice that you [I][B]must use [/B][/I]the charting software provided by your broker. You don’t. As I said earlier, your brokers data feed is filtered as it passes though the various levels of money makers. By using independent charting software you get data secured from different sources providing a clearer picture of the market. ProTrader 3 secures their data from LMax. LMax is much higher up in the chain than my broker and as such provides 3 to 5 times the volume in transaction data.
I would suggest that once set up start with a 100 tick and 500 tick chart and go from there.
- In the future, maybe towards end January '15 once work is back to normal, would you be prepared to do some live trading - could communicate via Skype?
Bro, I’m not a teacher or mentor. Nor do I aspire to be. But I do like being an active member here at BP and sharing some of the techniques that have helped in my development. IMO tick charts are one of the best keep secrets when it comes to analyzing the markets. How you implement tick charts into your trading plan is up to you.
There is only a handful of us here and we all trade differently but we are more than happy to help out where we can. All the best in your journey bro,
Bob
I have been using tick charts on a demo account for a while now. I have 35, 70, 250, 500, 1000 and 2000 tick charts set up. I have been unable to down load Protrader so I continue to use IC Markets tick charts on MT4. Most of my trades are taken on the 70 tick charts but you will see plenty of set ups on all of the charts. My success rate is about 60%, which is ok. Put the hours in and you will get the results.
I will try and post some set ups in the coming weeks.
Cheers guys
Dax I think 60% is a fantastic strike rate 
Hi Bob, I have been monitoring the tick charts for a few weeks, but my results are not that consistent. However I do see some kind of patterns like support N resistance levels which are quite important when trading the tick charts. The action is very fast trading on the tick charts.
Can I ask you how is your result so far? Is setting a specific time everyday to monitor the tick chart important? Ex: Only trade the London or US session? Or can it be consistent at any hours?
G’day Gssq. We like the fast pace at this level, it’s our fix. There’s no rules here only what you bring. This specific methodology was designed to introduce people to tick chart trading. How your trading plans develops is up to you. I think Daxter sums it up perfectly
Lets see if I can answer your queries.
Can I ask you how is your result so far?
So this is now one of three strategies that form part of my trading plan. Haven’t traded it since mid November as my focus has been elsewhere (mainly developing said plan). For the first half period I took 120 trades with 68 winners and 52 losses. At 10 pips a trade yielding 160 pips. Less 8 trades to cover commission cost yielded just over 14% growth in 6 months risking 2% each trade.
Is setting a specific time everyday to monitor the tick chart important? Ex: Only trade the London or US session? Or can it be consistent at any hours?[
You can trade this at any time of the day. However being able to set a specific time window in which to trade gives you a hell of an advantage. I will recommend one of the four open sessions, Tokyo/Singapore, Frankfurt, London or New York. What-ever suits you best.
The markets is a business process at the end of the day. Its there so organizations can exchange money. The same players are there at the same time each and every day playing the same game. It leaves behind evidental footprints in price actions that if you are prepare to watch and learn gives you hints in which way the market will go allowing you to go in for your sniper trade.
Where you take it to well thats up to you my friend, best of luck
Bob
Hi Bob,
Thanks for the reply. I will keep it up and do a specific session to see if I can optimize the results.
