Hindsight Markets Recaps Small-cap stocks on August 17, 2026
PFSA, August 17: six halts, $6.77, and $10.19 after hours
PFSA opened up 13%, ran to $6.77 through six halts, then gave back most of the run by the close.
What happened
Tiny float, no news
PFSA moved with no headline in our data, on a float of just 46K shares. It opened at $4.08, up 13% from the $3.60 close. By 9:45 it had worked up to $4.97.
Stop It's 9:46. PFSA is at $4.96, up from the $4.08 open. The $5.00 round number is just above. 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.
It touched $5.00, then ran to $5.23. At 9:47:30 it was halted. It reopened higher, at $5.58 at 9:57:30.
Halt after halt
Two more halts came by 10:16. It reopened from the third at 10:21:13 at $5.95.
Stop It's 10:22. PFSA reopened from a halt a minute ago and is at $6.00. It has had three halts already. Would you buy here?
Press play: the real Level 2, tape and chart run from 10:19 a.m. and stop at 10:22 a.m. ET for your call.
That minute it ran to $6.77, the regular-session high. It was halted again at 10:22:54. Two more halts followed, and by 10:39 it was at $4.68, down 31% from the top.
Fade, then after hours
It slid to $3.75 by 11:09. The last minute before 4 p.m. ended at $4.44. After hours it took off and hit $10.19 at 7:21 p.m., the day's high.
What to take from it: On this 46K-share float the halt reopens were thin, and the $6.77 top did not come back before the close.
Replay PFSA's day
It starts at 9:56 a.m. ET with the real Level 2, time and sales and chart, from the same feed the replay plays, stops at 9:59 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, gave some back. It gapped up 13.4% to $4.08 at the open, ran from the open to the high of $6.77 in 52 minutes through 3 halts, then gave back 87% of that move by 4:00 p.m., trading at $4.44, still above the open.
| Time (ET) | What happened | Watch it |
|---|---|---|
| 9:10 a.m. | First trade 20% above the previous close of $3.60 | |
| 9:10 a.m. | Pre-market high, $4.35 | |
| 9:30 a.m. | The open: $4.08, up 13.4% from the previous close | |
| 9:57 a.m. | Volume since 4:00 a.m. passes the whole float, 46,250 shares | |
| 10:22 a.m. | High of the day to the close, $6.77 | |
| 3:59 p.m. | Last trade before the 4:00 p.m. close, $4.44, 34.4% 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
- $3.60
- Open, 9:30 a.m.
- $4.08
- Gap at the open
- +13.4%
- Pre-market high
- $4.35 at 9:10 a.m.
- High, 4 a.m. to 4 p.m.
- $6.77 at 10:22 a.m.
- Low, 4 a.m. to 4 p.m.
- $3.59
- Close, 4 p.m.
- $4.44
- Change at 4 p.m.
- +23.4%
- After-hours high, 4 p.m. to 8 p.m.
- $10.19 at 7:21 p.m.
- Volume, 4 a.m. to 4 p.m.
- 697,991
- Volume after hours, 4 p.m. to 8 p.m.
- 1.11 million
- Relative volume by 8 p.m.
- 20.7×
- Float
- 46,250 shares, from filings as of August 17, 2026
- Shares outstanding
- 46,603
- Volume, from the one-minute bars: 3,316 shares before the 9:30 a.m. open (0%), 98,731 in the first 30 minutes (5%), and 1.70 million in the rest of the day to 8 p.m. (94%).
- Float rotation, the volume since 4 a.m. against the float of 46,250 shares: past it once at 9:57 a.m., twice at 9:59 a.m., three times at 10:21 a.m.
- Other days PFSA met the small-cap rule in our recaps: 5, the latest on October 22, 2026.
- The next session, August 18, 2026, it gapped up 94.7% at 9:30 a.m.
On the day's lists: the gainers, intraday runners, after-hours movers. It is here because it met the small-cap rule on the gainers: 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 (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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9:47 a.m. | 9:57 a.m. | 10 min 0 s | up 17.5% | $5.58, up 6.7% | down 7.3% | LULD pause (limit up-limit down) | |
| 10:00 a.m. | 10:10 a.m. | 10 min 0 s | down 1.1% | $5.02, down 2.9% | up 7.6% | LULD pause (limit up-limit down) | |
| 10:16 a.m. | 10:21 a.m. | 5 min 0 s | up 11.8% | $5.95, up 4.6% | up 13.8% | LULD pause (limit up-limit down) | |
| 10:22 a.m. | 10:27 a.m. | 5 min 0 s | up 19.0% | $6.69, down 1.2% | down 10.0% | LULD pause (limit up-limit down) | |
| 10:28 a.m. | 10:33 a.m. | 5 min 0 s | down 11.1% | $5.80, down 3.7% | down 10.0% | LULD pause (limit up-limit down) | |
| 10:34 a.m. | 10:39 a.m. | 5 min 0 s | down 13.3% | $5.36, up 2.7% | down 1.1% | 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 PFSA 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.