I don't like neither cause with tick, guys doing one lots can create many back and forth ticks which provides nothing good and volume of 2000 can be one trader, I have always used one minute bars so I can look for divergences between the bars and know exactly when bars will end. People waiting for something to occur on volume bars to get in, I have seen them scoot up several ticks in seconds and trade you might have been waiting for came and went. Those who have found patterns using either generally have automated it, but to try to do so manually, I could never do well at it, but today another year older and slower, LOL. I am damn lucky to be an American, no matter where you live we live in dangerous times, but only in America we have the opportunities here to do so for most part freely. Sipping Starbucks and trading my ass off. Trading is like a gift to me each day, it is an ATM, you guys making it way too hard. Learn Support/Resistance first, they show reversals, cheap risk and little longer targets, trend trades hardest cause so many only take them so they more herky jerky in Indexes, especially ES, and that is because bigger traders use as hedges and day trading, volume outstanding in first 75 minutes. Back to my coffee.
To me, they make more sense than time bars but less sense than volume bars. With tick-charts, low volume and high volume transactions look exactly the same, which conceals some of what's going on in the market.
Sharing your trade blotter and equity curve would be quite helpful to the OP instead of making this condescending Al Brooks level BS plop.
You mean like all of the head-faking ? Ticks are a measure of activity....and they even-out the deadzone period in the middle of the day. You can place activity based stops like get me out in 10,000 ticks which could be seconds or minutes....depending on the time of day. As an alternative, time stops based on 1 minute bars just don't make sense. 10 minutes at noon = 1 minute at the open.
One of many reasons I don't trade manually past 75 minutes cause of the dead zones past 75 minutes. Most consistent moves and volume happen within 75 minutes based on my back testing. My "edge" are time stops actually and of course ability to read charts, that doesn't mean I don't make mistakes nor losses, but I concentrate on not having many. One of the major problems of "Tick" activity is lack of data, data services and brokerages don't always send out redundant data, so what you think you are getting might not be all the data you are getting. Even take IB, some of their charts have wrong range bars and their data has been spotty through the years, a matter of too many instruments being sent out. I grew up in a time where it was impolite to ask what people make and impolite to brag how self makes, I have not changed. I have posted charts on trading the ES and made calls last year in Day trading and long term, more than most on this forum. I don't have time for hobbies but make time to mentor six guys, couple now trading real time and profitable, that is how I get my kicks of giving back. You all have fun weekend all.
You said the ES is an ATM for you earlier. How come many always make appeals to privacy when there are subtle (or not subtle like Brooks) insinuations of competency being pitched? The guys who claim to believe in privacy and reservedness should be consistent and say I don't know if I'm profitable in the past present or future.
I was concerned there for a second you were going to include those of us who trade in bed and don't wear pajamas and scalp and get paid by those who work from desks and have many screens in front of them always saying "I am so close".