The trading term 'tick' has different meanings depending on its context. As a noun a tick's most common context is the minimum increment a stock or security can move. As a verb, a tick (which is used interchangeably with the word 'tic') is a quick sudden movement. The context I think you're referring to is a tick chart. Here a 'tick' means a trade. The trade can be of any volume.
Trades occur at a specific point in time. Tick charts group the trades into bars of a defined number of trades (e.g. 100 tick bars). The tick chart bars do not have a fixed time increment. Asking how many seconds per tick is similar to asking how much volume per bar. Each bar is different. Of course you could average the number of trades across a pre-determined number of tick chart bars to get the average number of seconds per bar. This average number of seconds per tick chart bar would be different dependant on the security, the time of day, and many other factors. Since you are using IB data, this adds an additional layer of complexity. IB tick chart data does not include all trades. IB takes snapshots of trades every 0.2 to 0.3 seconds. Each snapshot is of the last trade in the snapshot time period. The snapshot may or may not include all the trades that occurred during that short time period. Sorry the answer to your simple question is not so simple. Regards, David _____ From: [email protected] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of yasuscus Sent: 03/18/2007 10:12 PM To: [email protected] Subject: [amibroker] Tick interval Hi Iwant to know per how many seconds Tick is? I am taking data from IB. Thanks in advance.
