Hindsight Markets Recaps Small-cap stocks on August 25, 2026
DAIC, August 25: the $5.05 regular-session top, one halt, and the wall at $3.32
DAIC more than doubled at the open, ran to $5.05 through one halt, then gave back most of the run by the close.
What happened
Morning run
DAIC had closed at $1.73. It opened at $3.65 and soon cleared the $4.27 pre-market high.
Stop It's 9:37. DAIC is at $4.68, above the $4.27 pre-market high and up from the $3.65 open. $5.00 is close. Would you buy here?
Press play: the real Level 2, tape and chart run from 9:34 a.m. and stop at 9:37 a.m. ET for your call.
It hit $5.05 at 9:38, then slid back to $4.06.
The halt and the wall at $3.32
The next push stopped lower, at $4.70 at 10:16. It was halted at 10:18:04 at $3.32. A 211K-share offer there was pulled, and a second one appeared.
Stop It's 10:23. DAIC was halted five minutes ago with the last trade at $3.32. About 84,000 shares were offered at $3.32 at the peak of the wall. The reopen is seconds away. Would you buy the reopen?
Press play: the real Level 2, tape and chart run from 10:20 a.m. and stop at 10:23 a.m. ET for your call.
It reopened at 10:23:04 at $3.15, 5% lower. Seconds later buyers ate the wall: 62K shares traded at $3.32 in under a second.
The rest of the day
It slid to $2.85 by 11:20, then closed the regular session at $3.89. After hours it ran to $6.49.
What to take from it: Here the second push stopped below the $5.05 top, and the drop that followed reached $3.32 within two minutes.
Replay DAIC's day
It starts at 9:18 a.m. ET with the real Level 2, time and sales and chart, from the same feed the replay plays, stops at 9:21 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 111.0% to $3.65 at the open, ran from the open to the high of $5.05 in 8 minutes, then gave back 83% of that move by 4:00 p.m., trading at $3.89, still above the open.
| Time (ET) | What happened | Watch it |
|---|---|---|
| 4:00 a.m. | First trade 20% above the previous close of $1.73 | |
| 4:12 a.m. | Volume since 4:00 a.m. passes the whole float, 853,881 shares | |
| 8:45 a.m. | Pre-market high, $4.27 | |
| 9:30 a.m. | The open: $3.65, up 111.0% from the previous close | |
| 9:38 a.m. | High of the day to the close, $5.05 | |
| 3:59 p.m. | Last trade before the 4:00 p.m. close, $3.89, 23.0% 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
- $1.73
- Open, 9:30 a.m.
- $3.65
- Gap at the open
- +111.0%
- Pre-market high
- $4.27 at 8:45 a.m.
- High, 4 a.m. to 4 p.m.
- $5.05 at 9:38 a.m.
- Low, 4 a.m. to 4 p.m.
- $2.71
- Close, 4 p.m.
- $3.89
- Change at 4 p.m.
- +124.9%
- After-hours high, 4 p.m. to 8 p.m.
- $6.49 at 5:16 p.m.
- Volume, 4 a.m. to 4 p.m.
- 51.45 million
- Volume after hours, 4 p.m. to 8 p.m.
- 9.02 million
- Relative volume by 8 p.m.
- 23.4×
- Float
- 853,881 shares, from filings as of August 25, 2026
- Shares outstanding
- 1.21 million
- Volume, from the one-minute bars: 21.02 million shares before the 9:30 a.m. open (35%), 10.68 million in the first 30 minutes (18%), and 28.77 million in the rest of the day to 8 p.m. (48%).
- Float rotation, the volume since 4 a.m. against the float of 853,881 shares: past it once at 4:12 a.m., twice at 4:41 a.m., three times at 5:41 a.m.
- Other days DAIC met the small-cap rule in our recaps: 6, the latest on October 12, 2026.
- The next session, August 26, 2026, it gapped up 59.5% at 9:30 a.m.
On the day's lists: the pre-market gappers, gainers, intraday runners, after-hours movers. 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 (1)
| Halted | Resumed | Length | The 5 minutes into it | Reopened at, against the last trade | The 5 minutes after | Reason in the feed | Watch it |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10:18 a.m. | 10:23 a.m. | 5 min 0 s | down 21.3% | $3.15, down 5.1% | up 16.2% | 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 DAIC on August 25, 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.