Hindsight Markets Recaps Small-cap stocks on August 20, 2026
IPST, August 20: six halts and $15.25
IPST opened near its previous close, then ran to $15.25 through six halts during the session.
What happened
Draft for review. Not published.
Into the first halt
No news was recorded for the day. After an $8.40 close the day before, it opened at $8.79. By 10:07 it sat at $10.92, just under the $11.01 pre-market high, and was halted at 10:07:16.
Stop It's 10:17. IPST last traded at $10.92, just under the $11.01 pre-market high, and has been halted since 10:07. Trading resumes in seconds. Would you buy the reopen?
Press play: the real Level 2, tape and chart run from 10:14 a.m. and stop at 10:17 a.m. ET for your call.
Reopens run to $15.25
It reopened at $11.85, above the pre-market high, and hit $13.03 a minute later. The next two halts also reopened higher.
It hit $15.25, the day's high, in the 10:30 minute. At 10:30:12 one sell order pushed it down to $14.00.
Lower reopens, pulled walls
After the top, reopens came in lower: $12.63 at 10:40:46, then $10.61 at 10:51:19. It touched $10.23, 33% off the high.
The bounce stopped lower, at $14.42. Then sell walls stepped down. A 39K-share wall at $13.00 was pulled at 11:17:13. A 37K wall at $12.20 was pulled at 11:24:39. By then price was $11.42.
It closed at $10.28, 33% below the high.
What to take from it: On this day, once the top was in, halt reopens came in lower and the stock closed far below $15.25.
Replay IPST's day
It starts at 10:01 a.m. ET with the real Level 2, time and sales and chart, from the same feed the replay plays, stops at 10:04 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
Intraday run. It opened up 4.6% at $8.79, then ran from the open to the high of $15.25 in 60 minutes through 3 halts.
| Time (ET) | What happened | Watch it |
|---|---|---|
| 4:04 a.m. | First trade 20% above the previous close of $8.40 | |
| 7:17 a.m. | Pre-market high, $11.01 | |
| 9:30 a.m. | The open: $8.79, up 4.6% from the previous close | |
| 10:30 a.m. | Volume since 4:00 a.m. passes the whole float, 704,514 shares | |
| 10:30 a.m. | High of the day to the close, $15.25 | |
| 3:59 p.m. | Last trade before the 4:00 p.m. close, $10.28, 32.6% 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
- $8.40
- Open, 9:30 a.m.
- $8.79
- Gap at the open
- +4.6%
- Pre-market high
- $11.01 at 7:17 a.m.
- High, 4 a.m. to 4 p.m.
- $15.25 at 10:30 a.m.
- Low, 4 a.m. to 4 p.m.
- $8.12
- Close, 4 p.m.
- $10.28
- Change at 4 p.m.
- +22.4%
- After-hours high, 4 p.m. to 8 p.m.
- $13.30 at 4:55 p.m.
- Volume, 4 a.m. to 4 p.m.
- 2.42 million
- Volume after hours, 4 p.m. to 8 p.m.
- 168,283
- Relative volume by 8 p.m.
- 0.8×
- Float
- 704,514 shares, from filings as of August 20, 2026
- Shares outstanding
- 721,578
- Volume, from the one-minute bars: 199,146 shares before the 9:30 a.m. open (8%), 112,346 in the first 30 minutes (4%), and 2.28 million in the rest of the day to 8 p.m. (88%).
- Float rotation, the volume since 4 a.m. against the float of 704,514 shares: past it once at 10:30 a.m., twice at 11:11 a.m., three times at 12:20 p.m.
- Other days IPST met the small-cap rule in our recaps: 5, the latest on October 27, 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 (6)
| Halted | Resumed | Length | The 5 minutes into it | Reopened at, against the last trade | The 5 minutes after | Reason in the feed | Watch it |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10:07 a.m. | 10:17 a.m. | 10 min 0 s | up 14.1% | $11.85, up 8.5% | up 12.2% | LULD pause (limit up-limit down) | |
| 10:19 a.m. | 10:24 a.m. | 5 min 0 s | up 21.8% | $13.35, up 0.4% | up 10.0% | LULD pause (limit up-limit down) | |
| 10:25 a.m. | 10:30 a.m. | 5 min 0 s | up 10.5% | $14.70, up 0.1% | LULD pause (limit up-limit down) | ||
| 10:30 a.m. | 10:40 a.m. | 10 min 0 s | down 9.9% | $12.63, down 4.5% | down 10.0% | LULD pause (limit up-limit down) | |
| 10:41 a.m. | 10:51 a.m. | 10 min 0 s | down 14.1% | $10.61, down 6.7% | up 17.7% | LULD pause (limit up-limit down) | |
| 10:55 a.m. | 11:00 a.m. | 5 min 0 s | up 9.9% | $12.87, up 3.0% | up 5.0% | 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 IPST on August 20, 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.