I was wondering if anyone out there happens to use IB for the Volume Breakdown indicator on Investor RT. The Volume Breakdown indicator requires tick data, which I know IB aggregates the ticks... The tick data I need to see is cumulative over a bar period (ie 250-300 ticks, or maybe 2-3 minutes, still fooling with it)... I don't need to see the EXACT bid and offer trades at each exact price...just need the sum at the end of each bar... Would IB data be sufficient for this? I know that the more and more exact you need, the less IB might be effective due to aggregation of ticks...but in this case, it seems that even if the data is aggregated, the cumulative total would end up being the same at the end of the 200-300 tick bar regardless if the data was off by a few milliseconds.... Does anyone have any info/experience on this topic? Thanks.
Reaver, I did an analysis about a year ago comparing the ticks coming in from IB with those coming in from DTN IQFeed: http://www.linnsoft.com/qa/a/108.htm Hopefully that will provide you some insight into the situation. In my opinion, the Volume Breakdown (delta) values you see from IB will certainly correlate strongly with what you see from other vendors, but there will also be differences. Whether it's sufficient for your needs, I can't say. Maybe some I/RT users with IB can chime in on the subject.