Reading an OTC bid–offer before you convert
A practical order of operations for checking spread width before you touch the conversion leg.
When a counterparty quote arrives as a single “all-in” number, it is easy to jump straight to the converted notional. On our Quarry Bay desk we reverse that habit.
First we separate bid and offer, even if the chat only printed one side. If only a mid appears, we ask whether the dealer meant mid or their offer — those two words change settlement by more than a rounding error on large notionals.
Next we express the width in basis points relative to mid. A spread that looks “small” in absolute HKD terms can still be wide once you normalise it. The Smart Crypto Calculator PC sequence we use records that width on its own line before any conversion runs.
Only then do we convert the notional into the settlement currency. If the conversion and the spread are tangled in one formula on the counterparty sheet, we rebuild them as two lines. That habit has caught more discrepancies than any late-night spreadsheet rewrite.
Bring both the chat export and any PDF confirmation to a Pre-Trade Spread Review if the width alone is what worries you.