The gaps between ticks carry information too

[Fairman]

The gaps between ticks carry information too

Most analysis looks at prices and ignores timing. Yet the time between ticks says a lot.

During active periods the gap is a few milliseconds. In quiet ones it can stretch to seconds. A sudden change in the pattern, with ticks bunching together or spreading out, marks changes in market conditions.

A burst of fast ticks with little price change suggests heavy two-way activity. A sequence of ticks arriving at regular intervals can point to a throttled feed or an algorithm. A long pause followed by a jump might be a feed problem or a sudden shift in liquidity.

For short term traders, timing can be a useful filter. Entries after a burst of activity differ from entries during a lull, even at the same price level.

Working with timing data requires proper timestamps, ideally with millisecond precision. Many retail platforms record only seconds, which hides most of the structure.

A practical use is a feed health monitor: if the gap between ticks on a normally busy pair exceeds a threshold, such as three seconds, pause trading until it recovers. It is a simple guard that protects against stale quotes.

Is the time between ticks tracked in any form, and has it added information?