Hindsight Markets Recaps Small-cap stocks on August 12, 2026
OFAL, August 12: the $3.50 bid, 22 halts, and $3.80
OFAL more than tripled at the open, ran to $3.80 through 22 halts, then fell below its open by the close.
What happened
No news, huge volume
OFAL closed the day before at $0.71, and our data shows no news. About 72M shares traded before the bell, many times its 1.9M-share float. The pre-market high was $3.50.
The open and the $3.50 bid
Stop It's 9:30. OFAL opens at $2.55, up from a $0.71 close. It traded 72 million shares pre-market, with a high of $3.50. Would you buy the open?
Press play: the real Level 2, tape and chart run from 9:27 a.m. and stop at 9:30 a.m. ET for your call.
It opened at $2.55 and was halted at 9:30:34. After another halt, it reopened at 9:46:03 at $3.35. A bid at exactly $3.50 grew to 520K shares, about 27% of the float.
Stop It's 9:56. OFAL has been halted for almost ten minutes and last traded at $3.50. A very large bid has sat at exactly $3.50 since 9:43. The stock is about to reopen. Would you buy the reopen?
Press play: the real Level 2, tape and chart run from 9:53 a.m. and stop at 9:56 a.m. ET for your call.
The bid that vanished
It reopened at 9:56:18 at $3.70 and hit $3.80, the high of the day. Within seconds it was halted again at $3.55. At 9:57:55, still halted, the $3.50 bid was pulled without trading there. At 10:11:34 it reopened at $3.00, 15% lower.
Lower all day
It was halted 22 times by 12:25. It closed at $1.35, 64% below the high.
What to take from it: A huge bid can leave the book during a halt without ever trading.
Replay OFAL's day
It starts at 8:25 a.m. ET with the real Level 2, time and sales and chart, from the same feed the replay plays, stops at 8:28 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 257.5% to $2.55 at the open, ran from the open to the high of $3.80 in 26 minutes through 3 halts, then gave back 196% of that move by 4:00 p.m., trading at $1.35, below the open.
| Time (ET) | What happened | Watch it |
|---|---|---|
| 6:06 a.m. | First trade 20% above the previous close of $0.7132 | |
| 6:12 a.m. | Volume since 4:00 a.m. passes the whole float, 1.92 million shares | |
| 8:41 a.m. | Pre-market high, $3.50 | |
| 9:30 a.m. | The open: $2.55, up 257.5% from the previous close | |
| 9:56 a.m. | High of the day to the close, $3.80 | |
| 3:59 p.m. | Last trade before the 4:00 p.m. close, $1.35, 64.5% 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
- $0.7132
- Open, 9:30 a.m.
- $2.55
- Gap at the open
- +257.5%
- Pre-market high
- $3.50 at 8:41 a.m.
- High, 4 a.m. to 4 p.m.
- $3.80 at 9:56 a.m.
- Low, 4 a.m. to 4 p.m.
- $0.70
- Close, 4 p.m.
- $1.35
- Change at 4 p.m.
- +89.3%
- After-hours high, 4 p.m. to 8 p.m.
- $1.75 at 5:05 p.m.
- Volume, 4 a.m. to 4 p.m.
- 87.61 million
- Volume after hours, 4 p.m. to 8 p.m.
- 2.88 million
- Relative volume by 8 p.m.
- 245.3×
- Float
- 1.92 million shares, from filings as of August 12, 2026
- Shares outstanding
- 2.64 million
- Volume, from the one-minute bars: 72.21 million shares before the 9:30 a.m. open (80%), 2.44 million in the first 30 minutes (3%), and 15.84 million in the rest of the day to 8 p.m. (18%).
- Float rotation, the volume since 4 a.m. against the float of 1.92 million shares: past it once at 6:12 a.m., twice at 6:20 a.m., three times at 6:24 a.m.
- Other days OFAL met the small-cap rule in our recaps: 3, the latest on August 25, 2026.
On the day's lists: the pre-market gappers, intraday runners. It is here because it met the small-cap rule on the pre-market gappers: price $2 to $20, up 10% or more, relative volume 5× or more, float under 20 million shares, its high reached $1 or more and it started the day at $20 or under (the rule every page uses).
Halts (22)
| Halted | Resumed | Length | The 5 minutes into it | Reopened at, against the last trade | The 5 minutes after | Reason in the feed | Watch it |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9:30 a.m. | 9:35 a.m. | 5 min 0 s | up 3.8% | $2.85, up 5.6% | up 5.3% | LULD pause (limit up-limit down) | |
| 9:36 a.m. | 9:46 a.m. | 10 min 1 s | up 11.1% | $3.35, up 11.7% | LULD pause (limit up-limit down) | ||
| 9:46 a.m. | 9:56 a.m. | 10 min 0 s | up 16.7% | $3.70, up 5.7% | LULD pause (limit up-limit down) | ||
| 9:56 a.m. | 10:11 a.m. | 15 min 1 s | up 1.4% | $3.00, down 15.5% | LULD pause (limit up-limit down) | ||
| 10:11 a.m. | 10:21 a.m. | 10 min 0 s | down 19.7% | $2.69, down 5.6% | down 5.6% | LULD pause (limit up-limit down) | |
| 10:22 a.m. | 10:27 a.m. | 5 min 0 s | down 10.9% | $2.57, up 1.2% | LULD pause (limit up-limit down) | ||
| 10:27 a.m. | 10:37 a.m. | 10 min 0 s | down 4.7% | $2.23, down 7.9% | LULD pause (limit up-limit down) | ||
| 10:37 a.m. | 10:47 a.m. | 10 min 0 s | down 14.0% | $2.11, up 1.4% | up 7.1% | LULD pause (limit up-limit down) | |
| 10:48 a.m. | 10:53 a.m. | 5 min 0 s | up 8.7% | $2.15, down 4.9% | LULD pause (limit up-limit down) | ||
| 10:53 a.m. | 11:03 a.m. | 10 min 0 s | down 11.5% | $1.80, down 10.0% | up 8.3% | LULD pause (limit up-limit down) | |
| 11:04 a.m. | 11:09 a.m. | 5 min 0 s | down 2.5% | $1.90, down 2.6% | up 16.3% | LULD pause (limit up-limit down) | |
| 11:11 a.m. | 11:16 a.m. | 5 min 0 s | up 13.3% | $2.21, unchanged | down 6.8% | LULD pause (limit up-limit down) | |
| 11:17 a.m. | 11:22 a.m. | 5 min 0 s | down 6.8% | $2.05, down 0.5% | down 9.3% | LULD pause (limit up-limit down) | |
| 11:23 a.m. | 11:28 a.m. | 5 min 0 s | down 9.7% | $1.85, down 0.5% | down 3.8% | LULD pause (limit up-limit down) | |
| 11:30 a.m. | 11:35 a.m. | 5 min 0 s | down 4.3% | $1.77, down 0.6% | down 2.8% | LULD pause (limit up-limit down) | |
| 11:38 a.m. | 11:43 a.m. | 5 min 0 s | down 3.4% | $1.66, down 3.5% | up 5.4% | LULD pause (limit up-limit down) | |
| 11:48 a.m. | 11:53 a.m. | 5 min 0 s | up 5.1% | $1.90, up 2.2% | up 8.9% | LULD pause (limit up-limit down) | |
| 11:56 a.m. | 12:01 p.m. | 5 min 0 s | up 11.3% | $2.10, up 1.4% | up 5.2% | LULD pause (limit up-limit down) | |
| 12:03 p.m. | 12:08 p.m. | 5 min 0 s | up 6.8% | $2.28, up 3.2% | LULD pause (limit up-limit down) | ||
| 12:08 p.m. | 12:13 p.m. | 5 min 0 s | down 3.4% | $2.00, down 6.3% | down 7.5% | LULD pause (limit up-limit down) | |
| 12:14 p.m. | 12:19 p.m. | 5 min 0 s | down 13.3% | $1.77, down 4.3% | up 8.5% | LULD pause (limit up-limit down) | |
| 12:20 p.m. | 12:25 p.m. | 5 min 0 s | up 3.8% | $2.00, up 4.2% | down 0.5% | 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 OFAL on August 12, 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.