SPY options median spread by expiration date, near-the-money strikes only
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 2026-08-14, from How Much Does It Cost to Trade Options?.
| expiry_code | quote_updates_millions | median_spread_bps | median_width_cents |
|---|---|---|---|
| 260702 | 16.8 | 113.64 | 2 |
| 260706 | 11 | 104.71 | 3 |
| 260707 | 10.8 | 144.58 | 3 |
| 260708 | 12.7 | 130.72 | 3 |
| 260709 | 12.3 | 118.34 | 3 |
| 260710 | 14.7 | 106.19 | 3 |
| 260713 | 13.4 | 96.15 | 3 |
| 260714 | 13.2 | 82.99 | 3 |
| 260715 | 12.4 | 77.22 | 3 |
| 260716 | 2.3 | 80.32 | 4 |
| 260717 | 14.4 | 71.51 | 3 |
| 260724 | 13 | 65.49 | 4 |
| 260731 | 12.5 | 54.27 | 4 |
| 260807 | 7.1 | 50.25 | 5 |
| 260814 | 5.3 | 47.01 | 6 |
| 260821 | 11.3 | 45.18 | 6 |
| 260831 | 10.2 | 43.96 | 6 |
| 260918 | 12.2 | 30.07 | 5 |
| 260930 | 7.1 | 35.4 | 7 |
| 261016 | 2.6 | 34.12 | 7 |
| 261030 | 3.6 | 39.56 | 9 |
| 261120 | 1.9 | 35.89 | 10 |
| 261130 | 4.8 | 39.31 | 10 |
| 261218 | 2.3 | 30.49 | 9 |
| 261231 | 1.7 | 37.16 | 11 |
- Rows × columns
- 25 × 4
- Computed
- Completeness
- No missing values
- Source
- US exchange, SIP and OPRA market data
- Licence
- Strasmore terms · free, no signup
What each column holds
| Column | Type | Range | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
expiry_code |
text | 25 distinct values (260702, 260706, 260707…) | |
quote_updates_millions |
number | 1.7 to 16.8 | |
median_spread_bps |
number | 30.07 to 144.58 | |
median_width_cents |
number | 2 to 11 |
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 , 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 opts AS (
SELECT
toFloat64(ask_price) - toFloat64(bid_price) AS width,
(toFloat64(ask_price) + toFloat64(bid_price)) / 2 AS mid,
substring(ticker, -15, 6) AS expiry_code,
toUInt32OrZero(substring(ticker, -8)) / 1000 AS strike,
cityHash64(ticker, sip_timestamp) AS det
FROM global_markets.cache_options_quotes
WHERE sip_timestamp >= '2026-07-02 13:30:00' AND sip_timestamp < '2026-07-02 20:00:00'
AND ticker >= 'O:SPY26' AND ticker < 'O:SPY27'
AND bid_price > 0 AND ask_price > 0 AND ask_price > bid_price
AND strike BETWEEN 730 AND 760
)
SELECT
expiry_code,
round(count() / 1e6, 1) AS quote_updates_millions,
round(quantileDeterministic(0.5)(width / mid * 10000, det), 2) AS median_spread_bps,
round(quantileDeterministic(0.5)(width * 100, det), 2) AS median_width_cents
FROM opts
GROUP BY expiry_code
HAVING count() >= 1000000
ORDER BY expiry_code ASC