Tick counts are not real traded volume
Posted: Sat Oct 31, 2026 8:39 pm
On forex platforms, the volume bar shows tick volume: the number of price changes in a period. It doesn't show how much was traded.
That matters, because a hundred price changes could be 100 trades of 1 million each or 100 changes caused by a single large order being sliced. The count doesn't say.
Still, tick volume correlates reasonably with real volume in the major pairs. During busy periods, quotes change more often. During quiet ones, less often. That's why it's useful as a rough activity measure.
The trouble starts when it's treated as a precise tool. Volume spikes get read as "big players entering", but the spike may just be a flurry of quote updates from one provider.
Different brokers give different tick volume, too. The number reflects that broker's feed, not the market. Two platforms can show completely different volume bars for the same minute.
It's best used for relative comparisons within one feed: is this minute busier than the last hour's average? Anything more than that is guesswork.
Decoration on the chart or a genuine timing tool: where does tick volume land for scalp entries?
That matters, because a hundred price changes could be 100 trades of 1 million each or 100 changes caused by a single large order being sliced. The count doesn't say.
Still, tick volume correlates reasonably with real volume in the major pairs. During busy periods, quotes change more often. During quiet ones, less often. That's why it's useful as a rough activity measure.
The trouble starts when it's treated as a precise tool. Volume spikes get read as "big players entering", but the spike may just be a flurry of quote updates from one provider.
Different brokers give different tick volume, too. The number reflects that broker's feed, not the market. Two platforms can show completely different volume bars for the same minute.
It's best used for relative comparisons within one feed: is this minute busier than the last hour's average? Anything more than that is guesswork.
Decoration on the chart or a genuine timing tool: where does tick volume land for scalp entries?