Hi, I was wondering if anyone could help me figure out, why do i see a newtick timestamp even though the tick price hasn't changed. I thought you only get a new timestamp when the tick changes.. any ideas ?
A tick represents a trade. If multiple trades happen at the same price ticks should print side by side. If a trade eats up the order book and takes up multiple price levels, it will show with a bar instead of just a line for a tick.
Without knowing the feed or platform you're looking at, it's hard to say for sure. However, one reason this can certainly happen is a change in the TOB quantity.
The proper term your looking for is “ was it hit on the bid or ask”. Each trade takes a buyer and a seller. Without knowing the bid/ask at the tick theirs no way to tell. With time and sales most data providers would show the bid/ask at the time of the trade where you could tell where the trade took place with the bid/ask. The worst thing your going to find with forex is their is no centralized exchange like futures or an aggregate like stocks. Tick charts, volume, etc seem to me would be very hard to use with forex or offer little useful information but I could be way off. Don’t trade spot fx myself.
Spot FX is a bid/ask environment. It's not regulated so any "ticks" are normally just a shift in the bid and/or ask prices. It doesn't represent actual trades since there is no centralized reporting mechanism anyway. You haven't stated which data vendor/broker you are using. You need to tell us for us to help you. Ask them EXACTLY what the data represents and report back here with details.