EURUSD ticks are smooth and USDCAD ticks are not, and that difference decides what works

[Shadow Trader]

Compare the tick charts of two liquid pairs and the character is different. EURUSD moves in many small steps with frequent updates. USDCAD tends to move in fewer, larger steps, with pauses between them.

The reasons are structural. EURUSD has the deepest market in the world, with a huge number of participants quoting it in every time zone. USDCAD has a more concentrated set of participants, with activity clustered around North American hours.

A scalping strategy tuned on EURUSD can fail on USDCAD without any change in the logic. Stops sized for smooth movement get hit by a single jump. Targets sized for small steps get skipped over. Slippage shows up where it didn't before.

Differences to expect when moving between pairs:

- Average pips per tick, and the size of the largest jump per minute
- How often the price pauses for more than a second
- Spread behaviour outside the main session
- Reaction to data from the home country of each currency

Treating each pair as its own market, with its own parameters and its own session, avoids the trap of assuming that what works on one translates to another.

Which pair behaves most differently from EURUSD at the tick level?