IQ
ISTB
iShares Core 1-5 Year USD Bond ETF
Category BondsIssuer iSharesNet assets $5.3bnFee 0.06%

ISTB bid-ask spread and liquidity

See what ISTB costs to trade and how closely it tracks its value.

93
Trades like a giant

IQ Liquidity Score

· 4 of 6 measured · Nov 12, 2026
86th percentile of 340 bonds ETFs
$1.06
one way, a $10,000 order
+0.02%
latest close, Nov 12
±0.09%
95% of days within
0 · Hard to trade100 · Trades like a giant

How easily this fund trades, from 0 to 100 on the same anchors for every fund; 100 is best. Method →

Trades like a giant: trades at a typical spread of 0.02%.

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askIQ about ISTB bid-ask spread and liquidity
Cost to trade
0.02% median spread, 30 days to Nov 11, 2026
100.0
Capacity
Not measured · its holdings are bonds, which have no volume source here
·
Price fidelity
95% of days within ±0.09% of NAV, 251 days to Nov 12, 2026
100.0
Primary market
4 active dealers of 39; largest 65% of creations and redemptions, N-CEN to Oct 31, 2025
65.0
Bad-day behaviour
Premium 1× normal on the 10 worst S&P 500 days, to Nov 12, 2026
100.0
Depth
Not measured · needs trade and quote data
·

Capacity: what its holdings can absorb in a day. Price fidelity: how close its price stays to NAV, the value of what it holds. Primary market: the dealers who create and redeem its shares. Bad-day behaviour: its premium on the market’s worst days. Depth: the dollars quoted at the bid and the ask. How to read the score →

ISTB scores 93 (Trades like a giant), ranked 40 of 340 scored Bonds ETFs plotted here. Spread 0.02% (30-day median, of the price), Nov 12, 2026. A $10,000 order costs about $1.06 each way.

Spread against score

ISTB among Bonds ETFs

Cheaper to trade sits left, easier to trade sits up.

340 scored
Hard to tradeThinLiquid with careLiquidTrades like a giantNov 12, 2026

What a trade costs

One way, half its 30-day median spread; sizes above $10,000 are estimates
ISTB: cost for your order at each size, one way
OrderDollarsPercentBasis
$1,000$0.110.011%tick floor
$10,000$1.060.011%tick floor
At least $1.06 one way at $10,000: half a one-cent tick at its close, since its issuer prints its 30-day median spread as 0.02%. Spread 0.02%, the median over the 30 days to Nov 11, 2026. A round trip costs twice this. Above $10,000 it adds an estimate of price impact.

Full cost to own

At $10,000
1 year
0.13%$13
fee alone 0.06% · $6.00
5 years
0.37%$37
fee alone 0.30% · $30

Fee, plus the round-trip spread once, plus the median premium paid at entry. Against AGGM, the cheapest fund in its segment, (fee 0.03%): ISTB costs less to own for about 1.9 years; after that AGGM’s lower fee makes it the cheaper fund.

Premium or discount to valueDaily, 251 days to Nov 12, 2026 · the ±1% band marked

Above zero: a premium. Below: a discount.

ISTB premium or discount to NAV, 251 days+1%0−1%Nov 13, 2025Nov 12, 2026
Latest close, Nov 12
+0.02%
95% of days within
±0.09%
Days more than 1% from NAV
0 of 251
Widest
+0.16%, Jul 2, 2026
CapacityWhat the holdings can absorb a day

Not measured: its holdings are bonds, which have no volume source here.

Who makes the market

Authorized participants · N-CEN, the year to Oct 31, 2025
Active dealers
4
of 39 authorized
Largest
65%
of creations and redemptions
One dealer
No
4 active

4 of 39 authorized participants created or redeemed ISTB shares in the year to Oct 31, 2025. From the fund’s Form N-CEN, filed Jan 14, 2026.

APs create and redeem shares. Every AP →

Active APs, largest first, by share of dollars created and redeemed: J.P. Morgan Securities LLC (65.1%), Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC (18.7%), BofA Securities, Inc. (11.8%), Jane Street Capital, LLC (4.4%). 35 more were listed and created or redeemed nothing.

Creations and redemptionsBy week, 52 weeks to Nov 11, 2026
Nov 17 2025Each week’s net creations (green) and redemptionsNov 11 2026

$950m net created in 27 weeks and $126m net redeemed in 6, over the 52 weeks from Nov 17, 2025 to Nov 11, 2026, from the change in its shares outstanding.

What retail orders paid

One way on $10,000, Sep 2026
All wholesalers read
$0.48
Vanguard customers
$0.10
Fidelity customers
$0.32
Robinhood customers
$0.75
Schwab customers
$0.83

In Sep 2026, retail market orders in ISTB paid $0.48 one way on $10,000, against $1.06 at the quote.

79% of shares filled better than the quote.

Aug 2025Grey: old format, orders of 100 to 9,999 sharesSep 2026

ISTB ranked 489th of 4,090 ETFs by retail order activity in Sep 2026, an ETFIQ estimate.

0.03% of the market-order dollars in 4 retail brokers’ reports. Buys and sells together. Retail activity ranking →

Where it trades

Q2 2026, 62 trading days
Off exchange
84%
Odd lots, of exchange volume
7.7%

In Q2 2026, 84% of ISTB’s shares traded off exchange on the median day.

Off exchange means wholesalers and dark pools. Odd lots are orders under 100 shares, a sign of retail trading.

How to place the order

To buy or to sell, up to $100,000
Order type
Limit: midpoint + 1¢ to buy, midpoint − 1¢ to sell.At the Nov 12 close of $47.21, that’s $47.22 to buy and $47.20 to sell.
When
ETF spreads are usually widest in the first minutes after the open and the last before the close.
Watch
The premium to NAV, charted above: a buyer pays more, and a seller gets less, when it is wide.
Why low volume does not mean illiquid →Limit orders vs market orders for ETFs →
Not measured yet: these need trade data
Spread through the day

Median spread by half hour, 30 days.

Buyers against sellers

Volume bought at the ask against volume sold at the bid.

Large trades

Trades above $500k: how many, and their share of volume.

Closing auction

Share of the day’s volume at the close.

Questions people ask

Is ISTB liquid?

ISTB’s IQ Liquidity Score is 93 of 100, Trades like a giant, the 86th percentile of 340 bonds ETFs, as of Nov 12, 2026.

What is ISTB’s bid-ask spread?

0.02% of the midpoint, the median over the 30 days to Nov 11, 2026, as its issuer states it. Half of it is about 1¢ a share at the Nov 12 close.

Does ISTB trade at a premium or discount to NAV?

It closed +0.02% from its NAV on Nov 12, 2026. On 95% of the 251 days to then it was within ±0.09%, and it closed more than 1% from NAV on 0 of them.

Who is the AP for ISTB?

ISTB’s latest Form N-CEN, for the period ending Oct 31, 2025, lists 39 authorized participants (APs), and 4 created or redeemed shares. The largest were J.P. Morgan Securities LLC (65.1%), Goldman Sachs & Co. LLC (18.7%), BofA Securities, Inc. (11.8%) of the dollars its APs created and redeemed.

Who is the LMM for ISTB?

ISTB’s lead market maker (LMM) on Nasdaq is Jane Street Capital, LLC. Lead market maker per Nasdaq, as of Nov 9, 2026.

What does it cost to trade $10,000 of ISTB?

At least $1.06 one way, 0.011%: half a one-cent tick, since its issuer prints its 30-day median spread as 0.02%. In and out costs twice that. Owning $10,000 for a year costs about $13 all in, against $6.00 for the fee alone.

How do I place a limit order for ISTB?

Set the limit at the midpoint + 1¢ to buy, or the midpoint − 1¢ to sell, in your broker’s quote. At the Nov 12 close of $47.21, that’s $47.22 to buy and $47.20 to sell.
Where to next
ETF trading costs and liquidity→Cost-to-trade checker→Why low volume does not mean illiquidguide →Limit orders vs market orders for ETFsguide →How the IQ Liquidity Score is builtmethod →ISTB fund page→
Sources and dates
SpreadiShares (fund page), 30-day median · to Nov 11, 2026
Premium to NAVETFIQ, close against the issuer’s NAV · Nov 13, 2025 to Nov 12, 2026
DealersForm N-CEN · the year to Oct 31, 2025
Creations and redemptionsShares outstanding, daily, from the issuer
IQ Liquidity ScoreETFIQ · Nov 12, 2026
Retail ordersSEC Rule 605 reports · Sep 2026
Where it tradesSEC MIDAS · Q2 2026

The score measures trading conditions, not the fund. ETFIQ makes no recommendations.

Cite this pageCitation, APA and Markdown

ETFIQ, ISTB trading: cost, capacity, premium and dealers, data as of Nov 12, 2026. https://etfiq.com/funds/istb/trading/

Open data →

The score measures trading conditions, not the fund. ETFIQ makes no recommendations.