Displayed shares at the best ask: median size and how often it covered a 1,000-share order, July 8, 2026
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 2026-07-26, from Market Order vs Limit Order, Measured.
| ticker | smallest_displayed_shares | median_ask_shares | pct_covering_1000_shares |
|---|---|---|---|
| IWM | 40 | 360 | 7.8 |
| KO | 100 | 300 | 2.6 |
| SPY | 40 | 160 | 1 |
| CATO | 100 | 100 | 5.6 |
| AAPL | 40 | 80 | 0.6 |
- Rows × columns
- 5 × 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
ticker |
text | 5 distinct values (AAPL, CATO, IWM…) | |
smallest_displayed_shares |
number | 40 to 100 | count |
median_ask_shares |
number | 80 to 360 | count |
pct_covering_1000_shares |
number | 0.6 to 7.8 | percent |
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.
SELECT ticker,
minIf(ask_size, bid_price > 0 AND ask_price > bid_price) AS smallest_displayed_shares,
round(quantileDeterministicIf(0.5)(toFloat64(ask_size), cityHash64(ticker, sip_timestamp), bid_price > 0 AND ask_price > bid_price), 0) AS median_ask_shares,
round(countIf(ask_size >= 1000 AND bid_price > 0 AND ask_price > bid_price) / countIf(bid_price > 0 AND ask_price > bid_price) * 100, 1) AS pct_covering_1000_shares
FROM global_markets.cache_stocks_quotes
WHERE ticker IN ('SPY', 'IWM', 'AAPL', 'KO', 'CATO')
AND sip_timestamp >= '2026-07-08 04:00:00' AND sip_timestamp < '2026-07-09 04:00:00'
AND (toHour(toTimeZone(sip_timestamp, 'America/New_York')) * 60 + toMinute(toTimeZone(sip_timestamp, 'America/New_York'))) BETWEEN 570 AND 959
GROUP BY ticker
HAVING countIf(bid_price > 0 AND ask_price > bid_price) > 0
ORDER BY median_ask_shares DESC, ticker ASC
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