How do you measure Pace of action if you use Constant Volume Bars?

What I like about time bars is that its easy to see when the market is likely to make big moves by looking at volume. The higher volume bars always correlate with larger moves in the market. And conversely, the market tends to grind sideways in a small range when volume is very low.

What I don't like about time bars is that you have to ignore a lot of data (overnight action). You also have to mess around with the time frame so that you're only looking at regular trading hours (which varies contract to contract).

So using CVB does help in seeing the whole picture. But for guys that use CVB, how do you measure the the pace of market action? Without knowing the pace of market action its hard to sit out the really slow periods if you use CVB.

 

Watch the screen.
Otherwise go back to time bars

regards
f9

 

Find a software the can plot time bars under the constant volume bars. The time bar will show how much time it took to fill the volume bar.

 

Thanks, Quotetracker has this indicator.
But it is very counter intuitive - it spikes the highest when pace is the slowest and doesn't register any value when pace is the fastest. I wish there was an indicator that showed the opposite: larger values for when pace is faster and smaller values for when pace is slower.

 

Some applications allow you to invert an indicator. You apply 1/p to the original.

 

overlay you cvb chart with your time chart in line format make sure they are in sync in both time and price.

 

Does anyone know which application would allow me to invert the time bar indicator?

 

What application allows this and what is the point of doing this?

 

Most charting applications offer the ability to define which hours you choose to plot. Are we referring to swing or intraday trading here?


So using CVB does help in seeing the whole picture. But for guys that use CVB, how do you measure the the pace of market action? Without knowing the pace of market action its hard to sit out the really slow periods if you use CVB. [/QUOTE]

I use CVB for intraday trading and can tell you that I measure 'market pace' by the speed at which the bars are built. Like anything in life, it takes a bit of time to get the 'feel' for it. I don't see how it would be practical to plot both time and CVB in the same charting window and they would be grossly out of scale. A more practical approach might be to simply observe both charts side by side, or over and under, as it were. A big move in a time chart, say 5 min. that builds a large bar may need many bars on a CVB chart. The spike in volume you see on the time chart can be confirmed by the printing of repeated volume bars.

 

just like you said you want to see pace, if you sync on time you will see line chart expodes when cvb still waits to fill its bar.