Hindsight Markets Recaps Small-cap stocks on September 17, 2026
DAIC, September 17: the $5.00 wall, a halt, and $7.12
DAIC more than doubled at the open, ran to $7.12 through one halt, then gave back most of the run by the close.
What happened
Up big before the bell
DAIC came in hot after a $2.01 close. It opened at $4.10, up 104%, after 15M shares traded pre-market.
The $5.00 wall
The wall sat just under the $5.03 pre-market high. It peaked at 79K shares, about 9% of the float.
Stop It's 9:40. DAIC is at $4.66. A big ask wall has been sitting at $5.00 since before the open, just under the $5.03 pre-market high. Would you buy here?
Press play: the real Level 2, tape and chart run from 9:37 a.m. and stop at 9:40 a.m. ET for your call.
Buyers ate it. At 9:41:32, 63K shares traded at $5.00 in under a second.
The 9:45 halt
At 9:45:13 it was halted. The last trade was $6.36.
Stop It's 9:50. DAIC has been halted for almost five minutes. The last trade was $6.36. Trading can resume any moment. Would you buy the reopen?
Press play: the real Level 2, tape and chart run from 9:47 a.m. and stop at 9:50 a.m. ET for your call.
It reopened at 9:50:13 at $6.00, 6% lower. A minute later it hit $7.12, the day's high, as a Benzinga headline ran.
It closed at $5.32, under a new ask wall at $6.00.
What to take from it: The wall and the halt both gave way, but buying right after cost more than the screen showed.
Replay DAIC's day
It starts at 9:28 a.m. ET with the real Level 2, time and sales and chart, from the same feed the replay plays, stops at 9:31 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 104.0% to $4.10 at the open, ran from the open to the high of $7.12 in 21 minutes through a halt, then gave back 60% of that move by 4:00 p.m., trading at $5.32, still above the open.
| Time (ET) | What happened | Watch it |
|---|---|---|
| 4:00 a.m. | First trade 20% above the previous close of $2.01 | |
| 4:20 a.m. | Volume since 4:00 a.m. passes the whole float, 853,881 shares | |
| 4:46 a.m. | Pre-market high, $5.03 | |
| 9:30 a.m. | The open: $4.10, up 104.0% from the previous close | |
| 9:51 a.m. | High of the day to the close, $7.12 | |
| 3:59 p.m. | Last trade before the 4:00 p.m. close, $5.32, 25.3% 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
- $2.01
- Open, 9:30 a.m.
- $4.10
- Gap at the open
- +104.0%
- Pre-market high
- $5.03 at 4:46 a.m.
- High, 4 a.m. to 4 p.m.
- $7.12 at 9:51 a.m.
- Low, 4 a.m. to 4 p.m.
- $2.73
- Close, 4 p.m.
- $5.32
- Change at 4 p.m.
- +164.7%
- After-hours high, 4 p.m. to 8 p.m.
- $6.39 at 5:10 p.m.
- Volume, 4 a.m. to 4 p.m.
- 40.63 million
- Volume after hours, 4 p.m. to 8 p.m.
- 3.70 million
- Relative volume by 8 p.m.
- 5.7×
- Float
- 853,881 shares, from filings as of September 17, 2026
- Shares outstanding
- 1.21 million
- Volume, from the one-minute bars: 15.05 million shares before the 9:30 a.m. open (34%), 9.60 million in the first 30 minutes (22%), and 19.68 million in the rest of the day to 8 p.m. (44%).
- Float rotation, the volume since 4 a.m. against the float of 853,881 shares: past it once at 4:20 a.m., twice at 4:24 a.m., three times at 4:28 a.m.
- Other days DAIC met the small-cap rule in our recaps: 6, the latest on October 12, 2026.
On the day's lists: the pre-market gappers, gainers, 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 (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 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9:45 a.m. | 9:50 a.m. | 5 min 0 s | up 37.4% | $6.00, down 5.7% | down 1.7% | 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 September 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.