Tick volume is not volume, but it is not useless either

[Amanhasnoname]

Retail platforms show tick volume: the number of price changes in a bar, not the number of contracts traded. It is a proxy, and an imperfect one.

Still, the proxy works better than the critics say. During active periods, more trades mean more price updates, so tick volume and real volume correlate reasonably well on major pairs.

Where it breaks down is across brokers. One broker's feed may update on every tiny quote change, another may filter them, so two platforms show very different counts for the same minute.

That means absolute values are unreliable, but relative values within one feed carry information. A bar with three times the usual tick count in the same feed signals genuine activity.

Use it comparatively. Compare each bar with the average of the last twenty, and flag outliers. Do not compare numbers between brokers or treat a volume threshold from a forum as universal.

Also remember that quote stuffing from liquidity providers can inflate counts without real trades behind them.

How much weight does tick volume get in your decisions, and has it ever misled you?