Spike filters: when one broker's wick is another's non-event

[Shadow Trader]

Brokers apply filters to their price feeds to remove "bad ticks". A quote that's wildly out of line with its neighbors gets dropped before reaching the chart. Without filters, a single erroneous quote could trigger stops across thousands of accounts.

The filters differ between brokers. One might drop any tick that moves more than 5 pips in one update. Another might let more through. The result is that the same moment looks different on different platforms: a tall wick on one chart, a clean candle on another.

For scalpers, that matters in both directions. A broker with an aggressive filter protects the trader from false spikes, but may also hide genuine fast moves, leaving price jumps instead of smooth transitions. A broker with a light filter shows everything, including errors, and executes stops on them.

Comparing candles from two brokers around a volatile moment often shows which one is filtering. The one with smaller wicks is smoothing.

A strategy built on wick patterns, such as rejection candles, will behave differently depending on the filter in the feed.

Which broker in the group shows the smoothest candles, and has that helped or hurt?