Recaps · August 17, 2026

XOS, August 17: a quiet day at $2.10, then a 4:30 p.m. contract headline and $4.77

• Small cap
• Momentum
• Main move: after hours
• Catalyst: Air Force contract
• Quiet regular session
• After-hours run
• Float traded after hours

Float

8.60 million shares

Volume

16.12 million shares

Previous close

$2.10

Open

$2.10 (up 0.2%)

High

$2.15 at 11:27 a.m.

Close

$2.10

Pre-market: thin and flat

The official previous close was just under $2.10. The first pre-market trade came at 5:50 a.m., at $2.12, for 18 shares.

The pre-market high was $2.12 at 5:50 a.m. It touched $2.12 again at 6:07, 7:05, 7:27 and 7:41. 1,093 shares traded before the bell. Many minutes had no trade at all.

A narrow regular session

It opened at $2.10. The low after the open was $2.07, at 9:58. The first 15 minutes held a few thousand shares, mostly at 9:30 and 9:39. After that, many minutes passed with no trades.

At 11:24 a.m. it traded at $2.12 to $2.13, level with and just above the pre-market high of $2.12. At 11:26 it printed $2.14 on 1,120 shares.

It reached $2.15 at 11:27 a.m., the high of the regular session. 225 shares traded in that minute.

By 11:34 it was back at $2.10, on 1,500 shares.

The rest of the session

The afternoon stayed small. It traded between $2.07 and $2.13. It dipped to $2.07 at 2:02 p.m. and again at 3:24 p.m. At 3:58 p.m. it touched $2.11. The 4:00 p.m. print was $2.09.

Regular-session volume was 36,351 shares, against a float of about 8.6 million.

4:30 p.m.: the headline

At 4:23 p.m. it traded at $2.06. Then, at 4:30 p.m., GlobeNewsWire ran: “Xos Secures U.S. Air Force Contract to Deliver Deployable Mobile Charging, Marking Defense Market Entry.”

The 4:30 minute opened at $2.10, reached $2.90 and closed at $2.61, on 77,251 shares. The next minute went to $2.66 and traded 103,091 shares. By 4:33 it had dipped to $2.27.

After hours: $2.27 to $4.77

From 4:32 to 4:42 it held between about $2.27 and $2.57. At 4:43 it broke out, and by 4:49 it crossed $3.00. It reached $3.79 at 4:56 and $4.05 at 5:02 p.m.

Then it pulled back, to a low of $3.43 at 5:14 and again at 5:18. It pushed again from 5:20 and reached $4.77 at 5:34 p.m., the high of the day, up 128% from the previous close.

Volume after hours was 16.08 million shares. That is nearly twice the float of 8.6 million. After 5:34 it faded. From 6:00 p.m. it traded roughly between $3.79 and $4.25 and was at $3.91 at the end of the 7:59 p.m. minute.

What to take from it

• The regular session gave no sign of what came next. 36,351 shares traded, in a $2.07 to $2.15 range.
• After a 4:30 p.m. headline, the stock covered far more ground in an hour than in the whole regular session. Here, $2.15 was the regular-session high and $4.77 came after hours.
• Thin books make small orders expensive. At the $2.15 high, 225 shares were offered and a 5,000-share order averaged $2.16.