Technical Analysis Plain and Simple: Charting the Markets in Your Language, Second Edition
by Michael N. Kahn
Tick
Rather than conjuring up images of insects or nervous disorders, the word “tick” is used here to describe both the minimum unit of trading (formerly 1/8 for a stock and 1/32 for a bond) and any individual trade. A ticker is simply a series of ticks (trades).
You might hear the phrase “5-tick stop.” This means that the stop price set for the trade has been set 5 ticks or trading units below the purchase price. In the U.S. stock market, that could mean 5/8 point. Typically, the term is used for markets that trade in very small units, such as bond trading in 1/32 or .01 or currencies trading in .0001.
Another meaning for tick is as a breadth indicator for the stock market. In this context, tick is the real-time sum of all stocks whose last ...
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