Read this page when a bar you rebuilt from raw trades does not match ours, because the conditions array on each US stock trade is almost always the reason. The table below lists the codes you will meet in practice, with what each one means. For whether a specific code updates a bar, ask /v3/reference/conditions, which returns the rules as data rather than prose.
Applies to
- Plans: a Stocks subscription for the trades themselves; the conditions endpoint is reference data and is available more widely.
- Endpoints: conditions on /v3/trades/{ticker} and in the flat files, c on the T WebSocket channel, and /v3/reference/conditions for the update rules.
- Asset classes: US stocks. Options and futures carry their own condition sets.
How to check what a code does to a bar
The table below defines each code. It does not say whether a code updates a bar, because that answer differs between the consolidated tape and a single venue, and it is published as data:
curl -X GET "https://api.massive.com/v3/reference/conditions?asset_class=stocks&data_type=trade&id=2&apiKey=YOUR_API_KEY"
Response
{
"results": [
{
"id": 2, "type": "sale_condition", "name": "Average Price Trade",
"update_rules": {
"consolidated": { "updates_high_low": false, "updates_open_close": false, "updates_volume": true }
}
}
],
"status": "OK"
}
Filter on data_type=trade, singular, because the id space is shared with quote conditions and asking for an id without the filter returns both.
The full reference
The full reference below is the complete list of stock trade condition codes, with the definition of each:
| Term | Condition | Definition |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Acquisition | A transaction made on the Exchange as a result of an Exchange acquisition. |
| 2 | Average Price Trade | A trade where the price reported is based upon an average of the prices for transactions in a security during all or any portion of the trading day. |
| 3 | Automatic Execution | A sale condition code that identifies a NYSE trade that has been automatically executed without the potential benefit of price improvement. |
| 4 | Bunched Trade | The combining of multiple odd-lot or round-lot orders for the same security so that they can all be executed at the same time. All affected clients must agree to the bunching before the order is submitted. Bunched trades may also be referred to as block trades. |
| 5 | Bunched Sold Trade | A bunched trade that is reported late. |
| 7 | Cash Sale | A transaction which requires delivery of securities and payment on the same day the trade takes place. |
| 8 | Closing Prints | The Participant Closing Price represents the last qualifying trade paid for a security by a Participant during the trading day. |
| 9 | Cross Trade | Indicates that the trade resulted from a Market Center’s crossing session. |
| 10 | Derivatively Priced | The transaction that constituted the trade-through was the execution of an order at a price that was not based, directly or indirectly, on the quoted price of the security at the time of execution, and for which the material terms were not reasonably determinable at the time the commitment to execute the order was made (REG NMS 611b7). |
| 11 | Distribution | Distribution stock refers to a large blocks of a security that are carefully sold into the market gradually in smaller blocks so as to inundate the market with sell orders for the security and driving down its price. |
| 12 | Form T/Extended Hours | Identifies a trade that was executed outside of regular primary market hours and is reported as an extended hours trade. |
| 13 | Extended Hours (Sold Out Of Sequence) | Identifies a trade that takes place outside of regular market hours and is reported as an extended hours trade out of sequence and at a time different from the actual transaction time. |
| 14 | Intermarket Sweep | The transaction that constituted the trade-through was the execution of an order identified as an Intermarket Sweep Order. |
| 15 | Market Center Official Close | Indicates the ‘Official’ closing value as determined by a Market Center. This transaction report will contain the market center generated closing price. |
| 16 | Market Center Official Open | Indicates the ‘Official’ opening value as determined by a Market Center. This transaction report will contain the market center generated opening price. |
| 17 | Market Center Opening Trade | The trade that constituted the trade-through was a single priced opening transaction by the Market Center (REG NMS Rule 611b3). |
| 18 | Market Center Reopening Trade | The trade that constituted the trade-through was a single priced reopening transaction by the Market Center (REG NMS Rule 611b3). |
| 19 | Market Center Closing Trade | The transaction that constituted the trade-through was a single priced closing transaction by the Market Center (REG NMS Rule 611b3). |
| 20 | Next Day | A transaction that requires the delivery of securities on the first business day following the trade date. |
| 21 | Price Variation Trade | Indicates a regular market session trade transaction that carries a price that is significantly away from the prevailing consolidated or primary market value at the time of the transaction. |
| 22 | Prior Reference Price | A sale condition that identifies a trade based on a price at a prior point in time, i.e., more than 90 seconds prior to the time of the trade report. The execution time of the trade will be the time of the prior reference price. |
| 23 | Rule 155 Trade (AMEX) | A Seller’s Option transaction gives the seller the right to deliver the security at any time within a specific period, ranging from not less than two calendar days, to not more than sixty calendar days. A security offered “Seller’s Option” may command a lesser price than if offered “Regular Way”. |
| 24 | Rule 127 (NYSE Only) | “To qualify as a NYSE Rule 127 the trade is executed outside the present quote and meets one or both of the following conditions: 1. has a volume of 10,000 shares or more and/or 2. has a dollar value of $200,000 or more.” |
| 25 | Opening Prints | The trading day’s first drawings of a symbol’s candlestick charts. |
| 27 | Stopped Stock (Regular Trade) | A Seller’s Option transaction gives the seller the right to deliver the security at any time within a specific period, ranging from not less than two calendar days, to not more than sixty calendar days. A security offered “Seller’s Option” may command a lesser price than if offered “Regular Way”. |
| 28 | Re-Opening Prints | The transaction or group of transactions reported as a result of a single- priced re-opening event by the Market Center. |
| 29 | Seller | A Seller’s Option transaction gives the seller the right to deliver the security at any time within a specific period, ranging from not less than two calendar days, to not more than sixty calendar days. A security offered “Seller’s Option” may command a lesser price than if offered “Regular Way”. |
| 30 | Sold Last | Sold Last sale condition modifier is used when a trade prints in sequence but is reported late OR the trade is printed by Amex in conformance to the One or Two Point Rule. A Sold Last transaction should only impact the consolidated last sale price for an issue if the market center reporting the sold last transaction also reported the transaction setting the current last sale price. |
| 32 | Sold (Out of Sequence) | A trade reported to the tape later than it actually occurred, with other trades printing in between. |
| 33 | Sold (Out of Sequence) and Stopped Stock | Sold Out of Sequence is used when a trade is printed (reported) out of sequence and at a time different from the actual transaction time. |
| 34 | Split Trade | An execution in two markets when the specialist or Market Maker in the market first receiving the order agrees to execute a portion of it at whatever price is realized in another market to which the balance of the order is forwarded for execution. |
| 35 | Stock Option | This is typically the stock portion of a delta neutral option trade executed by an option market maker. |
| 36 | Yellow Flag Regular Trade | Market Centers will have the ability to identify regular trades being reported during specific events as out of the ordinary by appending a new sale condition code Yellow Flag (“Y”) on each transaction reported to the UTP SIP. The new sale condition “.Y” will be eligible to update all market center and consolidated statistics. In certain instances, the UTP SIP will be required to append the .Y for the market center for trades reported as regular-way (Sale Condition @) |
| 37 | Odd Lot Trade | The Odd Lot Trade modifier will distinguish a trade resulting from a market center’s execution in increments less than the defined round lot size. |
| 38 | Corrected Consolidated Close (per listing market) | A transaction executed by the Listing Market to establish the official Consolidated Last Price as indicated by the Listing Exchange. |
| 41 | Trade Thru Exempt | The Trade Through rule is a 20 year-old rule applied to NYSE-listed stocks that states that when a market receives an order, it cannot execute it at a price inferior to any found on another market. In modern electronic markets where trades are executed in milliseconds, this rule can prevent a broker’s ability to meet their “best execution” obligation–because speed provides certainty that the price that is advertised can be accessed. |
| 52 | Contingent Trade | A Sale Condition code used to identify a transaction where the execution of the transaction is contingent upon some event. |
| 53 | Qualified Contingent Trade | A transaction consisting of two or more component orders executed as agent or principal where the execution of one component is contingent upon the execution of all other components at or near the same time and the price is determined by the relationship between the component orders and not the current market price for the security. |
| 59 | Short Sale Restriction Deactivated | Marks the end of a short sale restriction on a security. Its counterpart, code 60, marks one coming into effect. Both are short sale restriction indicators rather than sale conditions, so they describe the security's state rather than how the trade executed. |
| 60 | SSR in Effect | Any stock that has dropped more than 10% intraday has SSR in effect for that day and the following. |
What this table leaves out
/v3/reference/conditions?asset_class=stocks&data_type=trade returns 55 records where this table lists 40. The difference is codes you will not see on a live trade today:
- Three sale conditions the endpoint flags legacy, ids 6, 31 and 55, which no longer print.
- Ten financial status indicators, ids 62 to 71, and two further short sale restriction indicators, ids 57 and 58. These ride on the same trade data type but describe the security rather than the execution.
One trap worth knowing before you filter on any of these: the id space is shared between trades and quotes, and the same number means different things. Id 19 is Market Center Closing Trade on a trade and Market Maker Quotes Closed on a quote. Always pass data_type when you query the conditions endpoint, and read a conditions array against the data type it came from.
