What are tick-based intervals for?

Tick-based intervals encapsulate successive numbers of price ticks rather than fixed blocks of time. They provide a more granular view of market changes, which is especially helpful for day traders who want to respond immediately to price fluctuations and capture short-term swings. 

What can I learn from this article?

This article provides a comprehensive overview of this feature, highlighting the following questions:

• What are tick-based charts?
• What are the advantages of tick charts?
• What does BETA mean?
• What tick-based intervals are available?
• Who can use this feature?
• How to set up a tick-based chart?
• What tick data is available? For what exchanges?
• How much historical tick data is available?
• Are tick-based intervals supported in Pine scripts?
• What are the additional functionalities and limitations?

What are tick-based charts?

Unlike time-based charts, which periodically construct bars/candles in fixed blocks of time (e.g., each bar on a 30S chart represents 30 seconds), tick charts create bars based on the number of successive ticks, irrespective of the elapsed time. 

A 10-tick chart, for example, shows a new bar after every 10 consecutive ticks. A recorded tick contains price, time, and volume information, and each 10-tick bar shows the opening, high, low, and closing tick prices for each set of 10 ticks. The time elapsed in a 10-tick bar could be a few seconds, a minute, an hour, or even a day. In other words, the time it takes to record 10 ticks does not impact the formation of chart bars. A bar on a tick chart closes after it contains the required number of ticks, and a new bar begins when a new tick is available after the latest bar closes. The timestamp provided for each bar represents its starting time, i.e., the time of its first recorded tick.

Note that tick-based bars, like other intraday bars, align with the beginning of the trading session. As such, a new bar on a tick chart will also open at the start of a session, even if the previous bar does not contain the required number of ticks.

What are the advantages of tick charts?

Tick charts provide some significant advantages for traders:

• They offer a granular view of market activity. Since tick bars form based on a defined number of transactions, they can give a clearer view of when the market is most active or barely moving. New tick bars form more frequently during periods of high market activity. Conversely, new bars appear infrequently during periods of low market activity. 
• They provide a more detailed perspective of price action, trends, and trading volume, which helps to facilitate faster trading decisions. This perspective is helpful for short-term strategies such as scalping, where traders aim to make successive small profits from numerous quick trades. 
• They can provide enhanced visualization of trading actions during highly volatile times in the market compared to time-based charts. 

What does BETA mean?

Tick charts are currently in BETA, meaning they're available to users, but they're not perfect yet, and we're gradually improving them over time. We are collecting feedback to identify ways to improve this feature and tailor it to our users' needs. If you experience any issues with tick-based intervals or have suggestions on things we can improve, please share them with us by submitting a support ticket. 

What tick-based intervals are available?

Users can choose from the following options: 1T, 10T, 100T, and 1000T. So, one can load a chart whose bars show values for each tick (1T) or a chart that displays information for 10/100/1000 ticks per bar. 

Note that tick intervals are pre-set and cannot be customized.  

Who can use this feature?

Tick charts BETA is only available to accounts with Professional (Expert, and Ultimate) plans.

How to set up a tick-based chart?

All standard chart types (Bars, Candles, Line, etc.) support tick-based intervals, as do Heikin Ashi charts. This feature is not available yet for other non-standard chart types (Renko, Line Break, Kagi, or PnF). To use tick-based charting, select a supported chart type and choose a tick-based interval from the menu above the chart. 

Alternatively, you can type 1T, 10T, 100T, or 1000T on your keyboard and press Enter.

What tick data is available? For what exchanges?

Tick data is currently available for the top exchanges, i.e., the most popular ones according to our users. We will gradually add support for more exchanges over time. 

Here is the current list of exchanges with available tick data:

If a chart's symbol does not support tick intervals, the options are grayed out and unavailable in the intervals menu

How much historical tick data is available?

The maximum amount of historical tick data depends on the TradingView subscription and the chart's symbol. Expert plans can access up to 25,000 historical bars, Elite plans can access up to 30,000 bars, and Ultimate plans can access up to 40,000 bars. 

Note that continuous futures ("1!" and "2!" symbols, e.g., CME_MINI:ES1!, CBOT_MINI:YM1!) have additional limitations aside from the number of bars. The maximum tick data length for continuous futures can only include the current and previous contracts. No data is available for earlier contracts.

Are tick-based intervals supported in Pine scripts?

Indicators and strategies applied to tick-based charts calculate the same as usual. Additionally, Pine scripts can request tick-based data (provided you have one of the Professional plans). 

What are the additional functionalities and limitations?

• Tick data is currently available for the most popular exchanges. To access this data, you must have a Professional plan. 
• Tick-based intervals are pre-set and cannot be customized.
• Bar Replay and Deep Backtesting do not work with tick-based intervals.
• Tick-based Renko, Line Break, Kagi, and PnF charts aren't available yet.
• Server-side alerts aren't available for tick-based intervals.
• Tick-based intervals aren't present in our mobile apps yet.
• It is not possible to publish Public ideas that use tick-based charts.