It depends.  You'd need to look at the available indexes and whether SQL uses them for the query.  So, look at the query plan and see what it "tells" you. ...

To reduce space usage in that db, you can specify SORT_IN_TEMPDB = ON in the index create.

Also, to save time, pre-allocate additional log space, if needed.  If you must get...

The CostKeyDeletes tables should be clustered on CostKey, not on ID.  It's best for it to match the original table's key.  You can keep the ID, if you want, just...

Why are you re-posting the same q?

https://www.sqlservercentral.com/forums/topic/sql-query-to-check-the-status-change-for-an-item#post-4492292

The SELECT INTOs will hold locks.  Those might be causing issues.

One good way to avoid that is to an initial SELECT TOP (0) ... INTO to create the table, then...

Wow, that's exceptional.  I've never been at a place that had, say an "order" table vs. an "orders" table.

I wasn't sure StatusDate included a time.  If it's just a date, it's not safe to ORDER BY it.

I believe the more common, and better, naming for tables is plural.  I can't think of a major relational dbms that uses singular system table names.

For example: sys.objects (SQL Server),...

Yep, definitely remove ID.  The key to a "relationship" table should be the relationship keys, NOT an ID column.

;WITH ctePrevPrStatus AS (
    SELECT *, LAG(PrStatus) OVER(PARTITION BY PrID ORDER BY StatusID) AS PrPrevStatus
    FROM dbo.tblPresentationStatus
)
SELECT *
FROM ctePrevPrStatus
WHERE 
 ...

I'd suggest the clustered index on ( trade_date, symbol ) and not the other way around.  You want the clus key to be unique, so, if it's not, you'll want...

The TaskNames would have to be contiguous for that method to work.  I wanted to also handle some other TaskName appearing between "Distribute" and "Print", just in case.

SELECT JobID
FROM dbo.tblPrintTask
GROUP BY JobID
HAVING MAX(CASE WHEN TaskName = 'Distribute' THEN TaskID END) < 
    MAX(CASE WHEN TaskName = 'Print' THEN TaskID END)

(page bump needed?)

You could easily have an order of magnitude more rows in SG table than in T, and if you have a phone app waiting for the response, I would still...