The penny tick and the quoted gap, in basis points
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 2026-08-07, from The Sub-Penny Rule and Price Improvement.
| name | avg_spread_cents | one_cent_bps | spread_bps | tier |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MSFT ($388) | 6.23 | 0.26 | 1.61 | above $0.015 |
| AAPL ($300) | 3.19 | 0.33 | 1.06 | above $0.015 |
| NVDA ($207) | 1.52 | 0.48 | 0.74 | above $0.015 |
| KO ($80) | 1.54 | 1.26 | 1.94 | above $0.015 |
| BAC ($58) | 1 | 1.73 | 1.73 | at or under $0.015 |
| T ($23) | 1 | 4.44 | 4.44 | at or under $0.015 |
| F ($14) | 1 | 6.94 | 6.94 | at or under $0.015 |
- Rows × columns
- 7 × 5
- 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 |
|---|---|---|---|
name |
text | 7 distinct values (AAPL ($300), BAC ($58), F ($14)…) | |
avg_spread_cents |
number | 1 to 6.23 | |
one_cent_bps |
number | 0.26 to 6.94 | |
spread_bps |
number | 0.74 to 6.94 | |
tier |
text | 2 distinct values (above $0.015, at or under $0.015) |
Computed from Strasmore's warehouse of US exchange, SIP and OPRA market data. Equity prices are delayed; options greeks and implied volatility are end-of-day. This result is stored, not recomputed on load — it is exactly the numbers that were returned on , and the query below is what returned them.
Run it yourself
This is the exact query behind the result above. Change a ticker, a date or a column and run it against the warehouse — no account, no key. The no-signup tier is smaller than the one this page was computed on; a query that reaches past it comes back saying which plan runs it.
WITH best_quote AS
(
SELECT
ticker,
toStartOfSecond(sip_timestamp) AS sec,
toFloat64(max(bid_price)) AS best_bid,
toFloat64(min(ask_price)) AS best_ask
FROM global_markets.cache_stocks_quotes
WHERE ticker IN ('MSFT', 'AAPL', 'NVDA', 'KO', 'BAC', 'T', 'F')
AND sip_timestamp >= '2026-06-17 14:00:00'
AND sip_timestamp < '2026-06-17 14:15:00'
AND bid_price > 0
AND ask_price > bid_price
GROUP BY ticker, sec
HAVING min(ask_price) > max(bid_price)
)
SELECT
concat(ticker, ' ($', toString(round(avg((best_bid + best_ask) / 2), 0)), ')') AS name,
round(avg(best_ask - best_bid) * 100, 2) AS avg_spread_cents,
round(10000 * 0.01 / avg((best_bid + best_ask) / 2), 2) AS one_cent_bps,
round(10000 * avg(best_ask - best_bid) / avg((best_bid + best_ask) / 2), 2) AS spread_bps,
if(avg(best_ask - best_bid) <= 0.015, 'at or under $0.015', 'above $0.015') AS tier
FROM best_quote
GROUP BY ticker
ORDER BY avg((best_bid + best_ask) / 2) DESC