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[RT] Tick count survey results



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Well, I've waited for reports on tick counts, and only a few came in
despite repeated requests, so the report will be a bit sketchy. 

12/10/99 tick counts: 

SP full(incl nite)
Quote.com + dynastore   5831 
BMI Cable               5562 - 5784 

SP day only
official T&S count 4327
BMI Cable          3982 
Tenfore Europe     3147
Signal Cable       2026

ES
Quote.com + dynastore   17990
BMI Cable               16900 - 17900 
Omega FTP data          13225 
Tenfore Europe          11936
Signal Cable            8204

12/13/99 tick counts: 

ES
official T&S count  13883
Signal Cable        9161

Tentative conclusions, based on the above and other data (and I invite
your comments on these): 

Signal Cable has been degrading over the last two months and is now almost
useless to trade futures. Some days have less than *half* the real ticks.
The actual number of ticks filtered by Signal varies considerably from day
to day, so even the *ratio* of Signal/real ticks varies a lot. 

It would seem that very few people use eSignal for futures. It was like
pulling teeth to get even one response :-). With so little data, the
question of filtering of eSignal ticks is STILL open. If some of you would
like to volunteer to get eSignal tick counts for a particular day(or 2), 
please let me know and we can then do a better comparison, and perhaps 
settle this question. 

Quote.com looks like a very good alternative to BMI for futures. 
(Competition at last! :-). 

Some other ideas (and I invite your comments on these as well): 

Folks using BMI or Signal Cable might want to check ticks for selected
high-volume stocks and do a similar comparison. Might be veeerrryyy
interesting... 

Judging from the survey responses, almost everyone uses BMI - it seems
they get subscribers no matter what they do, or don't.  There have been
complaints on trading lists about BMI, particularly since taken over by
DBC. In one discussion thread, someone wondered why people would stay with
BMI. Perhaps it is the least miserable choice of a bad lot, and they can 
get away with "take it or leave it".

Any other comments from you folks?

Larry