Hindsight Markets Recaps Small-cap stocks on September 22, 2026
TOPS, September 22: $1.62 pre-market, a $1.00 bid eaten, and $0.89
TOPS opened up 80%, then faded below its open by the close.
What happened
Pre-market run to $1.62
On this day TOPS woke up far above its $0.72 close. By about 4:30 a.m., roughly the whole float had traded. It hit $1.62 at 5:42 a.m., the high of the day. A big ask wall at $1.70 was never reached.
The headline and the open
A 9:25 headline on unusual market action came with a wild swing. It opened at $1.29, then sold off to about $1.01 by 9:39.
The bid at $1.00
From 9:44 a big bid sat at exactly $1.00. It grew to 188K shares by 9:58. The stock bounced to $1.15, then slid back to $1.01.
Stop It's 9:59. TOPS is at $1.02. About 188,000 shares are bid at $1.00, just below. Would you buy here, with that bid under it?
Press play: the real Level 2, tape and chart run from 9:56 a.m. and stop at 9:59 a.m. ET for your call.
Sellers ate it. Starting at 10:00:25, 114K shares traded at $1.00. The bid was gone at 10:00:37. That minute dipped to $0.9717.
Under $1.00 to the close
Stop It's 10:51. TOPS is at $0.97, under $1.00. An ask wall that peaked near 158,000 shares sits at $1.05 above. Would you buy here?
Press play: the real Level 2, tape and chart run from 10:48 a.m. and stop at 10:51 a.m. ET for your call.
It kept falling. The 10:52 minute hit $0.8687, the low after the open. It got back to $1.02 by 12:22, then faded. It closed at $0.89, 45% under the high.
What to take from it: The big $1.00 bid looked like support, but sellers ate it in 10.6 seconds.
Replay TOPS's day
It starts at 12:06 p.m. ET with the real Level 2, time and sales and chart, from the same feed the replay plays, stops at 12:09 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
Gap and fade. It gapped up 79.7% to $1.29 at the open and traded below the open by 4:00 p.m., at $0.8919.
| Time (ET) | What happened | Watch it |
|---|---|---|
| 4:00 a.m. | First trade 20% above the previous close of $0.718 | |
| 4:30 a.m. | Volume since 4:00 a.m. passes the whole float, 4.24 million shares | |
| 5:42 a.m. | Pre-market high, $1.62 | |
| 5:42 a.m. | High of the day to the close, $1.62 | |
| 9:30 a.m. | The open: $1.29, up 79.7% from the previous close | |
| 3:59 p.m. | Last trade before the 4:00 p.m. close, $0.8919, 44.9% 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
- $0.718
- Open, 9:30 a.m.
- $1.29
- Gap at the open
- +79.7%
- Pre-market high
- $1.62 at 5:42 a.m.
- High, 4 a.m. to 4 p.m.
- $1.62 at 5:42 a.m.
- Low, 4 a.m. to 4 p.m.
- $0.8687
- Close, 4 p.m.
- $0.8919
- Change at 4 p.m.
- +24.2%
- After-hours high, 4 p.m. to 8 p.m.
- $0.9499 at 4:25 p.m.
- Volume, 4 a.m. to 4 p.m.
- 47.35 million
- Volume after hours, 4 p.m. to 8 p.m.
- 1.45 million
- Relative volume by 8 p.m.
- 22.5×
- Float
- 4.24 million shares, from filings as of September 22, 2026
- Shares outstanding
- 7.61 million
- Volume, from the one-minute bars: 31.10 million shares before the 9:30 a.m. open (64%), 6.97 million in the first 30 minutes (14%), and 10.72 million in the rest of the day to 8 p.m. (22%).
- Float rotation, the volume since 4 a.m. against the float of 4.24 million shares: past it once at 4:30 a.m., twice at 5:01 a.m., three times at 5:27 a.m.
- Other days TOPS met the small-cap rule in our recaps: 1, the latest on September 21, 2026.
On the day's lists: the intraday runners. It is here because it was in play on the intraday runners: up 30% or more on $3 million or more really traded, outside the small-cap rule's price, relative volume or float, its high reached $1 or more and it started the day at $20 or under (the rule every page uses).
Halts (none)
The exchange's halt feed shows no halts for TOPS that day.
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 TOPS on September 22, 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.