TickDirection (FIX tag 274)

charFIX 4.4FIX 4.2FIX 5.0 SP2

TickDirection (tag 274) is a char field defined in FIX 4.4, FIX 4.2 and FIX 5.0 SP2. It appears in 2 message types, always optionally. It is an enumerated field with 4 defined values.

At a glance

Tag: 274
Name: TickDirection
Datatype: char
Dialects: FIX 4.4, FIX 4.2 and FIX 5.0 SP2
Messages: 2
Valid values: 4

What the specification says

FIX 4.4

Direction of the "tick"

FIX 4.2

Direction of the "tick".

FIX 5.0 SP2

Direction of the "tick".

Descriptions are quoted from the FIX Orchestra sources under the Apache 2.0 licence.

A real message using tag 274

MarketDataSnapshotFullRefresh · FIX 4.4

Tag	Field	Wire value	Meaning
8	BeginString	FIX.4.4
9	BodyLength	93
35	MsgType	W	Market Data-Snapshot/Full Refresh
49	SenderCompID	BOARTEAM
56	TargetCompID	COUNTERPARTY
34	MsgSeqNum	2
52	SendingTime	20240101-12:00:00.000
268	NoMDEntries2 entries	2	repeating group
269	MDEntryType	0	Bid
274	TickDirection	0	Plus Tick
269	MDEntryType	0	Bid
274	TickDirection	0	Plus Tick
10	CheckSum	028

Edit and decode it yourself

Shown with | separators for readability. On the wire FIX uses SOH (0x01), an invisible control byte — and because BodyLength and CheckSum are computed over the actual bytes, the two forms have different checksums. Both are valid and both decode here.

Open in the full decoder →

Generated from the FIX 4.4 dictionary and verified at build time: it parses and validates with no issues. Open the decoder to try your own message.

Valid values

A value outside this list is not a parse error — the message still decodes — but validate() reports it as validate/value-not-in-enum.

Value	Meaning	Symbolic name
0	Plus Tick	PLUS_TICK / PlusTick
1	Zero-Plus Tick	ZERO_PLUS_TICK / ZeroPlusTick
2	Minus Tick	MINUS_TICK / MinusTick
3	Zero-Minus Tick	ZERO_MINUS_TICK / ZeroMinusTick

Where tag 274 appears

Requiredness is a property of the message, not of the field: the same tag can be optional in one message and conditionally required in another.

Message	MsgType	FIX 4.4	FIX 4.2	FIX 5.0 SP2	Where in the message
MarketDataIncrementalRefresh	X	Optional	Optional	Optional	inside the MDIncGrp component
MarketDataSnapshotFullRefresh	W	Optional	Optional	Optional	inside the MDFullGrp component

Wire format

A single character. Most char fields are enumerated, so the value is one of a fixed set rather than arbitrary text. @boarteam/fix keeps the value as a string and, for enumerated fields, reports validate/value-not-in-enum when it is not a defined value.

Read tag 274 in TypeScript

decode.tsts

import { createFixEngine } from "@boarteam/fix";import { dictionary } from "@boarteam/fix-dict-fix44";const fix = createFixEngine(dictionary);const { message, issues } = fix.parse(raw);const tickDirection = message.fields[274]?.raw;// e.g. "0" — Plus Tick// The dictionary also carries the labels:const label = fix.dictionary  .fieldByTag(274)  ?.enumValues?.find((e) => e.value === tickDirection)  ?.description;

Decode this in your own code

The same engine that produced the decoded example above is an Apache-2.0 npm package with zero runtime dependencies. It runs in Node and in the browser, and parse() returns problems as data instead of throwing.

npm i @boarteam/fix @boarteam/fix-dict-fix44

Try the decoder Source on GitHub