Quote Originally Posted by adam ali View Post
Billy,

I know yesterday it was recommended we pay no attention to the $TICK prior to the Fed announcement. Yet, it's interesting in reviewing the chart to see that the trend had been negative pretty much all day. I can only assume it's been yours and Bob's experience that tick direction can change on a dime when the Fed speaks, and it was only by coincidence yesterday that the trend continued in the same direction post-announcement as pre.
Adam,
Large institutional players make pivotal strategic decisions after such an important event as yesterday. We can see in hindsight that the strategic decisions were massively bearish, but heading into the event, most players will lighten up anyway their risk and positions and book short term profits with mild sell programs. These low-volume programs pushed the cumulative TICK lower but were actually kind of neutral since price was holding VWAP.
On the reaction, you always have an explosion of volume and it meant that, from the time of announcement, the TICK pressure was really serious compared to the morning. If the reaction had been bullish, cumulative TICK would have sky- rocketed instantly to the upside, no matter what it did before. So I prefer to ignore the TICK readings preceding the event.
Billy