# ISTB Bid-Ask Spread, Liquidity and NAV Premium > As of Nov 11, 2026, ISTB’s median bid-ask spread over 30 days was 0.02%, and its IQ Liquidity Score is 93, Trades like a giant. No fund is recommended. Data as of Nov 12, 2026. Rebuilt every trading night. As of Nov 12, 2026. Rebuilt every trading night. ## ISTB bid-ask spread and liquidity As of Nov 11, 2026, ISTB’s median bid-ask spread over 30 days was 0.02%, and its IQ Liquidity Score is 93, Trades like a giant. ### IQ Liquidity Score 93 of 100, Trades like a giant, 86th percentile of 340 bonds ETFs, 4 of 6 measured. A fixed 0 to 100 scale of trading conditions, the same anchors for every fund; 100 is the easiest to trade. It measures how cheaply and reliably the fund can be bought and sold, not whether to own it. How the score is built Trades like a giant: trades at a typical spread of 0.02%. Cost to trade, 100.0 0.02% median spread, 30 days to Nov 11, 2026 Capacity Not measured: its holdings are bonds, which have no volume source here Price fidelity, 100.0 95% of days within ±0.09% of NAV, 251 days to Nov 12, 2026 Primary market, 65.0 4 active dealers of 39; largest 65% of creations and redemptions, N-CEN to Oct 31, 2025 Bad-day behaviour, 100.0 Premium 1× normal on the 10 worst S&P 500 days, to Nov 12, 2026 Depth Not measured: needs trade and quote data (Phase 2) ### Cost for your order | Order | Dollars | Percent | Basis | | --- | --- | --- | --- | | $1,000 | $0.11 | 0.011% | tick floor | | $10,000 | $1.06 | 0.011% | tick floor | ### Full cost to own At $10,000: 0.13% ($13) over 1 year, and 0.37% ($37) over 5 years; the fee alone is 0.06% ($6.00) a year. 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 NAV - Latest close, Nov 12, 2026: +0.02% - 95% of days within: ±0.09% - Days more than 1% from NAV: 0 of 251 - Widest: +0.16%, Jul 2, 2026 Close against the NAV its issuer struck the same day, 251 days from Nov 13, 2025 to Nov 12, 2026. Source: ETFIQ from the issuer’s NAV and closing price. ### Capacity Not measured: its holdings are bonds, which have no volume source here. ### Dealers 4 active of 39 authorized participants; the largest did 65% of creations and redemptions, in the year to Oct 31, 2025 (Form N-CEN filed Jan 14, 2026). The active authorized participants, largest first, by share of the 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. ### How to trade ISTB 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 minutes before the close. ETFIQ measures this fund’s own day once it has trade data. Watch The premium. On 95% of days it is within ±0.09%; beyond that a buyer pays more, and a seller gets less, than the holdings are worth. ### What retail orders paid 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. | Orders | One way on $10,000 | | --- | --- | | All wholesalers read | $0.48 | | Vanguard customers | $0.10 | | Fidelity customers | $0.32 | | Robinhood customers | $0.75 | | Schwab customers | $0.83 | | Month | One way on $10,000 | | --- | --- | | Aug 2025 (old format) | $0.29 | | Sep 2025 (old format) | $0.27 | | Oct 2025 (old format) | $0.35 | | Nov 2025 (old format) | $0.24 | | Dec 2025 (old format) | $0.20 | | Jan 2026 (old format) | $0.24 | | Feb 2026 (old format) | $0.34 | | Mar 2026 (old format) | $0.19 | | Apr 2026 (old format) | $0.24 | | May 2026 (old format) | $0.27 | | Jun 2026 (old format) | $0.25 | | Jul 2026 (old format) | $0.25 | | Aug 2026 | $0.36 | | Sep 2026 | $0.48 | ISTB ranked 489th of 4,090 ETFs by retail order activity in Sep 2026, an ETFIQ estimate. It drew 0.03% of the market-order dollars in 4 retail brokers’ reports. Retail activity ranking ### Where it trades In Q2 2026, 84% of ISTB’s shares traded off exchange on the median day. Odd lots, under 100 shares, were 7.7% of its exchange volume. ### Coming with trade data Spread through the day, buyers against sellers, large trades and the closing auction’s share, each once ETFIQ has trade and quote data. ### 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. ### Sources and dates - Spread: iShares (fund page), 30 days to Nov 11, 2026 ( the issuer’s page ). - Premium: ETFIQ, close against the issuer’s NAV, Nov 13, 2025 to Nov 12, 2026. - Dealers: Form N-CEN, the year to Oct 31, 2025, accession 0001410368-26-001031. - Score: ETFIQ, Nov 12, 2026. The method is at /methodology/liquidity. - Retail orders: SEC Rule 605 reports, Sep 2026, from Charles Schwab, G1 Execution Services, Fidelity Brokerage Services, Robinhood, HRT Financial, Jane Street Capital, Vanguard. Computed by ETFIQ. Citadel Securities refused ETFIQ’s request, so its orders are not counted. - Where it trades: SEC MIDAS, Q2 2026, against the fund’s daily volume from Tiingo. ### Where to next The score measures trading conditions, not the fund. ETFIQ is an independent publisher, not an adviser, and makes no recommendations. Standards and sources --- Source: ETFIQ, independent ETF data. Recomputed nightly from public filings and prices. Cite: ETFIQ, ISTB trading: cost, capacity, premium and dealers, data as of Nov 12, 2026. https://etfiq.com/funds/istb/trading/ Licence: https://etfiq.com/license/ Data ETFIQ computes is free to use with attribution: ETFIQ (etfiq.com). Issuer data stays under its owner's terms. HTML: https://etfiq.com/funds/istb/trading/