Hindsight Markets Recaps Small-cap stocks on August 21, 2026
MFI, August 21: a tiny float, six halts, and $15.00
MFI opened near its previous close, then ran to $15.00 through six halts during the session.
What happened
A tiny float wakes up
The only news came the day before: a press release about new company websites. The float is just 526K shares. MFI opened at $8.63, was halted at 10:08:52, then chopped near $10 until noon.
Halts on the way up
The run began at 12:02. At 12:06:36 it was halted.
Stop It's 12:11. MFI was halted at 12:06 after reaching $11.81 and is about to reopen. The float is only 525,597 shares. Would you buy the reopen?
Press play: the real Level 2, tape and chart run from 12:08 p.m. and stop at 12:11 p.m. ET for your call.
The reopen minute ran from $12.00 to $13.20.
Two more halts followed. The 12:17 reopen minute hit $15.00, the day's high.
The fall
After the fifth halt, a ten-minute pause, each high came in lower. At 1:09:39 it was halted a sixth time.
Stop It's 1:14 p.m. MFI has been halted since 1:09 p.m. and is about to reopen. The last trade before the halt was $9.39, down from $15.00 about an hour earlier. Would you buy the reopen?
Press play: the real Level 2, tape and chart run from 1:11 p.m. and stop at 1:14 p.m. ET for your call.
It reopened at $9.40 and bounced only to $10.84. By 1:24 p.m. it was down to $9.11.
The last regular-session bar closed at $9.61, 36% below the high.
What to take from it: On this tiny float, the reopen price on the screen was far from what a real order paid.
Replay MFI's day
It starts at 12:01 p.m. ET with the real Level 2, time and sales and chart, from the same feed the replay plays, stops at 12:04 p.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 0.1% at $8.63, then ran from the open to the high of $15.00 in 167 minutes through 3 halts.
| Time (ET) | What happened | Watch it |
|---|---|---|
| 9:30 a.m. | The open: $8.63, up 0.1% from the previous close | |
| 10:31 a.m. | First trade 20% above the previous close of $8.62 | |
| 12:17 p.m. | High of the day to the close, $15.00 | |
| 3:59 p.m. | Last trade before the 4:00 p.m. close, $9.61, 35.9% 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
- $8.62
- Open, 9:30 a.m.
- $8.63
- Gap at the open
- +0.1%
- Pre-market high
- not available
- High, 4 a.m. to 4 p.m.
- $15.00 at 12:17 p.m.
- Low, 4 a.m. to 4 p.m.
- $8.63
- Close, 4 p.m.
- $9.61
- Change at 4 p.m.
- +11.5%
- After-hours high, 4 p.m. to 8 p.m.
- $9.90 at 7:42 p.m.
- Volume, 4 a.m. to 4 p.m.
- 164,870
- Volume after hours, 4 p.m. to 8 p.m.
- 6,756
- Relative volume by 8 p.m.
- n/m
- Float
- 525,597 shares, from filings as of August 21, 2026
- Shares outstanding
- 50.18 million
- Volume, from the one-minute bars: 0 shares before the 9:30 a.m. open (0%), 284 in the first 30 minutes (0%), and 171,342 in the rest of the day to 8 p.m. (100%).
- In our recaps, this is the only day MFI met the small-cap rule.
On the day's lists: the gainers, intraday runners. 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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10:08 a.m. | 10:18 a.m. | 10 min 0 s | up 1.4% | $10.16, up 16.1% | LULD pause (limit up-limit down) | ||
| 12:06 p.m. | 12:11 p.m. | 5 min 0 s | up 16.7% | $12.00, up 1.6% | up 10.0% | LULD pause (limit up-limit down) | |
| 12:12 p.m. | 12:17 p.m. | 5 min 0 s | up 11.8% | $13.64, up 3.3% | LULD pause (limit up-limit down) | ||
| 12:17 p.m. | 12:22 p.m. | 5 min 0 s | up 13.6% | $14.87, down 0.9% | LULD pause (limit up-limit down) | ||
| 12:22 p.m. | 12:32 p.m. | 10 min 0 s | down 10.6% | $12.35, down 7.9% | down 4.9% | LULD pause (limit up-limit down) | |
| 1:09 p.m. | 1:14 p.m. | 5 min 0 s | down 14.2% | $9.40, up 0.1% | up 15.3% | 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 MFI on August 21, 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.