How thin the denominator gets: sessions bucketed by names at a 52-week extreme

Name: How thin the denominator gets: sessions bucketed by names at a 52-week extreme
Creator: Strasmore
Published: 2026-08-04
License: https://www.strasmore.com/terms/

Answered against 22 years of US equities and 12 years of US options data and published with the query that produced it. This result is stored as of 2026-08-04, from What Is the High-Low Index? Market Breadth.

as of 2026-08-04 table 3×5read in context →

How thin the denominator gets: sessions bucketed by names at a 52-week extreme — 3 rows by 5 columns, computed 2026-08-04 from US exchange, SIP and OPRA data.
sample_size_bucket	readings	avg_names_in_denominator	median_record_high_pct	median_distance_from_50
1 to 3 names	39	2	100	50
4 to 9 names	37	5.2	80	30
10 or more names	1	10	70	20

Rows × columns: 3 × 5
Computed: 2026-08-04
Completeness: No missing values
Source: US exchange, SIP and OPRA market data
Licence: Strasmore terms · free, no signup
Formats: JSON · CSV · the SQL below

What each column holds

Column definitions for How thin the denominator gets: sessions bucketed by names at a 52-week extreme, derived from the stored result.
Column	Type	Range	Notes
`sample_size_bucket`	text	3 distinct values
`readings`	number	1 to 39
`avg_names_in_denominator`	number	2 to 10
`median_record_high_pct`	number	70 to 100	percent
`median_distance_from_50`	number	20 to 50

Computed from Strasmore's warehouse of US exchange, SIP and OPRA market data. Equity prices are delayed; options greeks and implied volatility are end-of-day. This result is stored, not recomputed on load — it is exactly the numbers that were returned on 2026-08-04, and the query below is what returned them.

Run it yourself

This is the exact query behind the result above. Change a ticker, a date or a column and run it against the warehouse — no account, no key. The no-signup tier is smaller than the one this page was computed on; a query that reaches past it comes back saying which plan runs it.

WITH daily_close AS (
    SELECT ticker,
           toDate(toTimeZone(window_start, 'America/New_York')) AS session_date,
           argMax(close, window_start) AS close_px
    FROM global_markets.delayed_stocks_minute_aggs
    WHERE ticker IN ('AAPL','MSFT','NVDA','AMZN','GOOGL','AVGO','JPM','JNJ','XOM','PG',
                     'KO','PEP','WMT','HD','CVX','MRK','PFE','ABBV','CSCO','ORCL',
                     'CRM','ADBE','MCD','NKE','VZ','T','DIS','BA','CAT','GE',
                     'IBM','MMM','UNH','LLY','COST','TGT','SBUX','GS','MS','LIN')
      AND window_start >= toDateTime('2025-03-01 00:00:00')
      AND window_start < toDateTime('2026-08-01 05:00:00')
      AND (toHour(toTimeZone(window_start, 'America/New_York')) * 60
           + toMinute(toTimeZone(window_start, 'America/New_York'))) BETWEEN 570 AND 959
    GROUP BY ticker, session_date
),
extremes AS (
    SELECT cur.ticker AS ticker,
           cur.session_date AS session_date,
           cur.close_px AS close_px,
           max(hist.close_px) AS high_52w,
           min(hist.close_px) AS low_52w
    FROM daily_close AS cur
    INNER JOIN daily_close AS hist ON cur.ticker = hist.ticker
    WHERE cur.session_date >= toDate('2026-04-01')
      AND hist.session_date <= cur.session_date
      AND hist.session_date > cur.session_date - 364
    GROUP BY cur.ticker, cur.session_date, cur.close_px
),
daily AS (
    SELECT session_date,
           countIf(close_px >= high_52w) AS new_highs,
           countIf(close_px >= high_52w) + countIf(close_px <= low_52w) AS names_at_extreme
    FROM extremes
    GROUP BY session_date
    HAVING names_at_extreme > 0
)
SELECT multiIf(names_at_extreme <= 3, '1 to 3 names',
               names_at_extreme <= 9, '4 to 9 names',
               '10 or more names') AS sample_size_bucket,
       count() AS readings,
       round(avg(names_at_extreme), 1) AS avg_names_in_denominator,
       round(quantileDeterministic(0.5)(100 * new_highs / names_at_extreme,
                                        cityHash64(session_date)), 1) AS median_record_high_pct,
       round(quantileDeterministic(0.5)(abs(100 * new_highs / names_at_extreme - 50),
                                        cityHash64(session_date)), 1) AS median_distance_from_50
FROM daily
GROUP BY sample_size_bucket
ORDER BY avg_names_in_denominator

SQL to run

WITH daily_close AS (
    SELECT ticker,
           toDate(toTimeZone(window_start, 'America/New_York')) AS session_date,
           argMax(close, window_start) AS close_px
    FROM global_markets.delayed_stocks_minute_aggs
    WHERE ticker IN ('AAPL','MSFT','NVDA','AMZN','GOOGL','AVGO','JPM','JNJ','XOM','PG',
                     'KO','PEP','WMT','HD','CVX','MRK','PFE','ABBV','CSCO','ORCL',
                     'CRM','ADBE','MCD','NKE','VZ','T','DIS','BA','CAT','GE',
                     'IBM','MMM','UNH','LLY','COST','TGT','SBUX','GS','MS','LIN')
      AND window_start >= toDateTime('2025-03-01 00:00:00')
      AND window_start < toDateTime('2026-08-01 05:00:00')
      AND (toHour(toTimeZone(window_start, 'America/New_York')) * 60
           + toMinute(toTimeZone(window_start, 'America/New_York'))) BETWEEN 570 AND 959
    GROUP BY ticker, session_date
),
extremes AS (
    SELECT cur.ticker AS ticker,
           cur.session_date AS session_date,
           cur.close_px AS close_px,
           max(hist.close_px) AS high_52w,
           min(hist.close_px) AS low_52w
    FROM daily_close AS cur
    INNER JOIN daily_close AS hist ON cur.ticker = hist.ticker
    WHERE cur.session_date >= toDate('2026-04-01')
      AND hist.session_date <= cur.session_date
      AND hist.session_date > cur.session_date - 364
    GROUP BY cur.ticker, cur.session_date, cur.close_px
),
daily AS (
    SELECT session_date,
           countIf(close_px >= high_52w) AS new_highs,
           countIf(close_px >= high_52w) + countIf(close_px <= low_52w) AS names_at_extreme
    FROM extremes
    GROUP BY session_date
    HAVING names_at_extreme > 0
)
SELECT multiIf(names_at_extreme <= 3, '1 to 3 names',
               names_at_extreme <= 9, '4 to 9 names',
               '10 or more names') AS sample_size_bucket,
       count() AS readings,
       round(avg(names_at_extreme), 1) AS avg_names_in_denominator,
       round(quantileDeterministic(0.5)(100 * new_highs / names_at_extreme,
                                        cityHash64(session_date)), 1) AS median_record_high_pct,
       round(quantileDeterministic(0.5)(abs(100 * new_highs / names_at_extreme - 50),
                                        cityHash64(session_date)), 1) AS median_distance_from_50
FROM daily
GROUP BY sample_size_bucket
ORDER BY avg_names_in_denominator

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