Hindsight Markets Recaps Small-cap stocks on August 17, 2026
STFS, August 17: three halts, a $5.32 bid wall, and $6.96
STFS opened up 17%, ran to $6.96 through three halts, then fell below its open by the close.
What happened
Draft for review. Not published.
A fast open
STFS has a float of only 1.1M shares. It opened at $4.55, up 17%. Halt #1 at 9:32:32 froze it at $5.32. It reopened 15% higher, at $6.11.
A 45K-share bid sat at $5.32. The stock ran to $6.45 by 9:45.
Stop It's 9:46. STFS is at $5.91, off the $6.45 high of a minute ago. Below, a bid wall that peaked at 44,683 shares at 9:40 sits at $5.32. Would you buy here?
Press play: the real Level 2, tape and chart run from 9:43 a.m. and stop at 9:46 a.m. ET for your call.
The bid breaks
The bid did not hold. Sellers hit it at 9:47:23, and 21K shares traded there in 1.5 seconds. Then it was gone. Halt #2 came that minute at $5.27.
An ask wall at $6.97
Later, an ask wall sat at $6.97.
Stop It's 10:01. STFS is at $6.39, up from $5.69 a minute earlier. An ask wall has been on the book at $6.97 since 9:57. Would you buy here?
Press play: the real Level 2, tape and chart run from 9:58 a.m. and stop at 10:01 a.m. ET for your call.
It rose to a $6.96 high at 10:02, one cent under the wall. The wall was pulled at 10:02:02. By 10:04 it was at $5.85, and halt #3 hit.
It faded and closed at $4.21, 40% below the high.
What to take from it: The top came one cent under a wall, and it closed 40% lower.
Replay STFS's day
It starts at 9:26 a.m. ET with the real Level 2, time and sales and chart, from the same feed the replay plays, stops at 9:29 a.m. and asks what you would do. Or press Play on any moment in How it traded.
The details
How it traded, step by step
Gap, run and fade. It gapped up 16.7% to $4.55 at the open, ran from the open to the high of $6.96 in 32 minutes through two halts, then gave back 114% of that move by 4:00 p.m., trading at $4.22, below the open.
| Time (ET) | What happened | Watch it |
|---|---|---|
| 7:20 a.m. | First trade 20% above the previous close of $3.90 | |
| 7:21 a.m. | Pre-market high, $5.14 | |
| 9:30 a.m. | The open: $4.55, up 16.7% from the previous close | |
| 9:58 a.m. | Volume since 4:00 a.m. passes the whole float, 1.12 million shares | |
| 10:02 a.m. | High of the day to the close, $6.96 | |
| 3:59 p.m. | Last trade before the 4:00 p.m. close, $4.22, 39.4% below the high |
The shape's name comes from a fixed rule, not a judgement (how shapes are named). Halts are in the halt table below.
The day in numbers
- Previous close
- $3.90
- Open, 9:30 a.m.
- $4.55
- Gap at the open
- +16.7%
- Pre-market high
- $5.14 at 7:21 a.m.
- High, 4 a.m. to 4 p.m.
- $6.96 at 10:02 a.m.
- Low, 4 a.m. to 4 p.m.
- $3.54
- Close, 4 p.m.
- $4.22
- Change at 4 p.m.
- +8.2%
- After-hours high, 4 p.m. to 8 p.m.
- $5.60 at 5:56 p.m.
- Volume, 4 a.m. to 4 p.m.
- 2.73 million
- Volume after hours, 4 p.m. to 8 p.m.
- 223,255
- Relative volume by 8 p.m.
- 3.8×
- Float
- 1.12 million shares, from filings as of August 17, 2026
- Shares outstanding
- 1.19 million
- Volume, from the one-minute bars: 135,319 shares before the 9:30 a.m. open (5%), 1.03 million in the first 30 minutes (35%), and 1.80 million in the rest of the day to 8 p.m. (61%).
- Float rotation, the volume since 4 a.m. against the float of 1.12 million shares: past it once at 9:58 a.m., twice at 10:28 a.m.
- Other days STFS met the small-cap rule in our recaps: 1, the latest on August 10, 2026.
On the day's lists: the intraday runners. It is here because it was in play on the intraday runners: up 30% or more on $3 million or more really traded, outside the small-cap rule's price, relative volume or float, its high reached $1 or more and it started the day at $20 or under (the rule every page uses).
Halts (3)
| Halted | Resumed | Length | The 5 minutes into it | Reopened at, against the last trade | The 5 minutes after | Reason in the feed | Watch it |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9:32 a.m. | 9:43 a.m. | 10 min 47 s | up 21.5% | $6.11, up 14.8% | down 13.7% | LULD pause (limit up-limit down) | |
| 9:47 a.m. | 9:52 a.m. | 5 min 0 s | down 0.9% | $5.47, up 3.8% | up 15.2% | LULD pause (limit up-limit down) | |
| 10:05 a.m. | 10:10 a.m. | 5 min 0 s | down 9.2% | $5.84, down 0.2% | down 4.6% | LULD pause (limit up-limit down) |
Halt bands that day: the LULD plan's Amendment 18 rules (what that means, LULD calculator).
How we read the data, name a day's shape and pick the stocks: methodology.
Trade this day
Replay STFS on August 17, 2026 in Hindsight Markets: the real tape, the order book and the halts, on a clock you control, and see where your orders would have filled.