IWM On The Sidelines - July 19, 2011

[Billy]

Billy,

I'm still struggling a bit about how best to use the TICK indicator. For instance, yesterday the market was selling off hard in the morning but bottomed early afternoon and proceeded to gain strength in the last hour. Did the TICK give one an advance read on this? Should one look at this in a divergence sort of way (lower price on the index but less negative TICK number indicates a point where one might enter, etc.)?

Could you elaborate a bit on how you use it?

Thanks very much.

Adam,
It is extremely simple. I use cumulative $TICK as a detector of buy and sell programs.
Here is a 10-day minute by minute chart with the half-day, full-day and 10 hours averages. These averages have been arbitrarily chosen after observing that they were reliable for trend-following.
When the cumulative TICK stays above the ½ day average, the buy programs are on.
When below, the sell programs are on. When there is a reversion to the average, there is a pause in the programs that ususally resume on the ½ day average or reverse (from buy to sell or from sell to buy). It closed yesterday right on the average, so look today if it falls back down (sell programs on) or crosses the average upward (buy programs on) after he open.
Don’t make it complicate when it is so nice and easy!
Billy