Understanding Tick Volume vs. Real Trading Volume

What Is Tick Volume?

Tick Volume, visible in your MetaTrader terminal (Ctrl+L), represents the number of price updates within a specific bar or candle. Each time the price changes, the tick volume count increases by 1. However, this metric lacks critical details:

  • It does not reflect the direction of trades driving price changes.
  • It does not show the size of trades executed.

It is simply the sum of price updates received by your terminal.

The Problem with Tick Volume

Tick volume varies significantly between brokers. In our past monitoring, we found that:

  • Brokers closer to the interbank market provide more ticks.
  • Brokers filtering or manipulating data feeds report fewer ticks, causing you to miss valuable price updates.

This variability means indicators based on tick volume deliver inconsistent results between brokers, even though all are reflecting the same Forex market. Relying on tick volume creates strategies that may work on one broker but fail on another.

The Advantage of Real Trading Volume

FX Volume offers a completely different approach by providing real retail trading volume - a robust and reliable dataset. Since October 2018, our servers have analyzed and recorded trading volume data from multiple global sources.

Here is why FX Volume stands out:

1. Unparalleled Scale

In 2020, we analyzed between 250,000 and 1,000,000 lots in real-time, equivalent to $25-100 billion in unleveraged trading positions. While still a fraction of the multi-trillion-dollar Forex market, this volume provides actionable insights into price and volume correlations.

2. Comprehensive Data

Real trading volume includes both the direction and size of open trades for any trading pair. This detailed information allows us to calculate a volume-weighted index for the eight major Forex currencies.

3. Consistency Across Brokers

Unlike tick volume, FX Volume ensures identical results across all terminals and brokers. A strategy developed using FX Volume data with one broker will yield the same results with another - bringing reliability and confidence to your trading.

Conclusion

With FX Volume, you gain access to real, actionable trading volume data that reflects true market activity. Why settle for incomplete and inconsistent tick volume when you can rely on the power of real volume?

For a detailed setup walkthrough, see the FX Volume Complete Guide.