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Fixing Instruments Quoted in Half- and Quarter-Thirty-Seconds

Fixing bad ticks in instruments that trade in quarter- and half-thirty-seconds can be confusing. Sometimes they are quoted with a plus sign at the end of the price. For example, you might see a price quoted as,

10003+

What this means is, 100 and 3 half thirty-seconds. The plus sign at the end of the quote denotes the four in the fraction 4/8. To get half-thirty-seconds, the program multiplies 3/32 by 4/8 and then reduces the fraction to get a value equivalent to 64ths, or 1/2 32nds. When you fix a bad tick on such an instrument, you omit the plus sign. You write, instead,

100034

For an instrument quoted in quarter-thirty-seconds, the program might give you the following quote,

10005+

This means 100 and 5 quarter-thirty-seconds. Here, the plus sign denotes the 2 in the fraction 2/8. To get quarter-thirty-seconds, the program multiplies 5/32 by 2/8 and reduces the product to get a value equivalent to 128ths, or 1/4 32nds. Again, when you enter a quarter-thirty-seconds, you type:

100052

The numerator at the end of the price (the 4 in the first example and the 2 in the second example) is more specific than the plus sign. Although prices shown by the program can have plus signs, you cannot use the plus sign to fix bad ticks. If the program is displaying prices, it inserts the plus sign. If you are entering a price by hand, you need to specify half- and quarter-thirty-seconds using this convention.