So you don't think it would be easier to get someone to offer a penny more for a stock compared to 6 cents? The effect wouldn't be real great, but at least a little bit. Hard to quantify how much though. Just the more likely or easier it is for a stock to change price, the more that would happen, and hence to some degree a greater chance for higher and lower tick counts.
Strange open. The futures opened almost flat at just .25 more than the SPX cash, and then only fell to -.90ish within the first minute. It's rare that we don't have the futures open at least +-1 more than the cash. Last Wednesday we did have it open at .65. And three weeks ago we had two in a row that opened in the -1's. And in the last two months the only other opens less than +-2 were a 1.90, .90 and a 1.25. Highest open in the last two months was a +13's and the lowest was yesterday at -13's.