What are peoples thoughts regarding time charts vs. tick count charts? It seems so many traders use time charts but I question if they are the best, especially when big moves occur like today in the ES and other index futures markets. Time charts seem to limit the opportunities for scalpers when the market is really moving. From my experience, it seems tick count charts like a 233 or 300, 377, or 610 tick do a better job of tracking price. Any thoughts?
Depends. When markets are trading with volume, I prefer time based because so many others are looking at the same thing. Helps drawing trendlines, etc. (which only work cause they are self fullfilling). When markets are really thin, like overnight bonds for example, I switch over to tick based bars. Jay
It also depends upon what type of trade methodology your using. Some methods work best with time charts whereas others may work best with tick count charts. Although I'm not a scalper...I would recommend tick count charts for most scalpers. Mark