Recaps · August 17, 2026

CDTG, August 17: the $3.00 wall, one halt, and $3.30

• Small cap
• Momentum
• Main move: the morning
• Round-number break
• Halted once
• Lower high

Float

2.84 million shares

Volume

2.37 million shares

Previous close

$2.09

Open

$2.17 (up 3.8%)

High

$3.30 at 10:04 a.m.

Halts

1 (9:50 a.m.)

Close

$2.80

The day before

On August 14, CDTG opened at $1.53 and reached $2.50. It gave some of that back and closed at $2.09.

Pre-market and the open

The first trades on the 17th were at $1.89, below the $2.09 close. Pre-market was thin. The high was $2.13 at 4:01 a.m., and 17,604 shares traded before the bell. That is about 0.6% of the float (2.84 million).

It opened at $2.17, up 4% from the previous close. It slipped to $2.06 at 9:35. Then it turned up. At 9:38 the candle ran to $2.31. By 9:42 it had reached $2.64, up 22% from the open. That minute traded 44,633 shares, including a single 11,100-share print at $2.49.

At 9:45 a buy order of 10,340 shares swept up through five price levels, from $2.46 to $2.50. The stock kept grinding higher toward $3.00.

The wall at $3.00

From 9:40 a.m. on, there was a large offer at exactly $3.00, well above the price at the time. The stock had not yet traded through $3.00 that day.

Here's what happened. The wall peaked at 21,765 shares at 9:50:00, about 0.8% of the float. At 9:50:03 a 17,802-share print went through at $2.99. In under a second, 16,725 shares traded at exactly $3.00 and the wall was gone. It wasn't pulled. Buyers ate it.

The halt

The 9:50 candle ran from $2.87 to $3.18 on 78,609 shares. At 9:50:22 it was halted (a volatility pause), with the last trade at $3.18.

Right after the ask wall broke, a different wall appeared. A bid for 51,263 shares at $3.00 built up, about 1.8% of the float, peaking at 9:54:05.

It reopened at 9:55:22 at $3.19, on a 22,170-share print.

The bid at $3.00 did not hold. 4,938 shares traded at exactly $3.00 over about 13 seconds, and by 9:55:35 the bid was gone. The 9:55 candle ran down to $2.53 and closed at $2.71 on 170,270 shares. So the reopen at $3.19 was the high of that minute.

The top at $3.30

It bounced right away. From $2.69 at 9:57 it ran to $3.25 at 9:59, up 21%. It then pulled back to $2.74 at 10:02.

At 10:04 it went again. From $2.79 at 10:03 it spiked to $3.30, the high of the day, in the 10:04 minute. The next candle also touched $3.30, then dropped. At 10:06 it was back at $2.65 within two minutes of the top.

It never got back above $3.30. At 10:15 it fell to $2.51 and spent the late morning mostly between about $2.50 and $2.90.

The rest of the day

It tried again at midday. At 11:56 it jumped to $3.05. An ask wall of up to 33,109 shares sat at $2.97 from 12:00 to 12:03, and at 12:06 it reached $3.07. Then at 12:59 it pushed to $3.17, a lower high under the $3.30 top.

From there it faded. It dipped to $2.70 at 1:03 p.m., then traded mostly between $2.70 and $3.08, with a push to $3.08 at 2:29 p.m., and closed at $2.80.

After hours it climbed back to $3.08 on thin volume. By the close, 2.29 million shares had traded: volume equal to about 80% of the float, at about 8 times its normal volume.

What to take from it

• Here a big ask wall at $3.00 was not a ceiling. It gave way in under a second.
• The screen price is not your price. Right after the wall broke, a 5,000-share buy cost $841 more than the screen showed. At the halt reopen the book was deep and it cost nothing extra. The same order can cost very different amounts.
• After the top, the next push stopped lower. $3.30 at 10:04 a.m., then $3.17 at 12:59 p.m.