Recaps · August 20, 2026

PCLA, August 20: six halts, a $6.60 bid, and $12.87

• Small cap
• Momentum
• Main move: intraday
• No headline in the data
• Pre-market high break
• Halted six times
• Bid wall pulled
• Float traded 2.4x

Float

1.05 million shares

Volume

2.64 million shares

Previous close

$6.40

Open

$6.35 (up 0.8%)

High

$12.87 at 2:19 p.m.

Halts

6 (10:12 a.m. and 10:17 a.m. and 10:30 a.m. and 10:36 a.m. and 2:22 p.m. and 2:28 p.m.)

Close

$8.43

Before the open

On August 19, PCLA traded between $6.15 and $6.79 on 28,478 shares. The official close was $6.40. The float is small, about 1.05 million shares.

No headline is in our data for August 20. Pre-market was thin: 2,057 shares in all. The pre-market high was $6.70 at 4:20 a.m. At 7:43 a.m. it dipped to $6.21, the low of the day.

It opened at $6.35, below the $6.40 close. Then it did very little. Until 10:06 it stayed between $6.34 and $6.49. At 10:09 it cleared the pre-market high of $6.70.

10:10 to 10:46: four halts

The 10:10 minute reached $7.30 on 3,007 shares. The 10:11 minute reached $7.90 on 8,292 shares. At 10:12:14 it was halted (a volatility pause) after a $7.93 print.

It reopened at 10:17:14. The 10:17 minute opened at $8.30.

The stock ran to $9.13 and was halted again at 10:17:33. That halt lasted ten minutes. It came back at 10:27:34 at $10.30, higher than where it stopped. A single print of 15,206 shares crossed at $10.30 on the reopen. The 10:27 minute went to $11.33 on 74,226 shares, about 7% of the float in one minute.

It pushed to $10.79 at 10:29. At 10:30:36 it was halted a third time, after a minute that had traded as low as $9.18. It reopened at 10:35:36. That minute opened at $8.88 and fell to $7.99. At 10:36:09 it was halted a fourth time. The reopen came at 10:46:09. The 10:46 minute opened at $7.23 and ranged from $7.94 down to $6.55, 42% under the $11.33 high from 10:27, on 82,578 shares.

The bid at $6.60

The 10:47 minute traded as low as $6.65. At 10:49:28 a bid showed up at exactly $6.60, below the market. It peaked at 32,983 shares, about 3% of the float, across all exchanges. The stock had touched $6.55 in the 10:46 minute, five cents under it.

It kept climbing. At 10:55:00 a 13,799-share sell order went through three price levels, $8.21 to $8.11, inside 50 milliseconds. That same minute still reached $8.54, 28% above the $6.65 low of the 10:47 minute.

At 10:59:35 the $6.60 bid was pulled. The size left the book without trading there. The stock was around $8.10 by then. It did not come back to $6.60 in the next three hours.

Three hours of chop

From 11:00 to 2 p.m. it stayed between $7.34 (11:40) and $8.42 (1:49 p.m.). Minute volume was often a few hundred to a few thousand shares. Some minutes had no trades at all.

At 1:32 p.m. it traded as low as $7.78. By 2:07 p.m. it had reached $10.58, up 36% from that low. By that minute, more shares had traded than exist in the whole float (1.05 million).

2:11 p.m.: back above $11

It dipped to $9.70 at 2:11 p.m. and went to $11.72 at 2:14 p.m. The next minute it dipped to $10.72. By 2:17 it was back to $11.23, under the 2:14 high.

The 2:17 minute reached $12.31. The 2:18 minute reached $12.72. At 2:19 p.m. it hit $12.87, the high of the day, 101% above the $6.40 close. The 2:20 minute traded as low as $11.25.

At 2:22:32 p.m. it was halted with the price near $10.82. It reopened at 2:27:32 with a 17,377-share print at $10.82.

At 2:28:07 it was halted a sixth time. It reopened at 2:38:07 with a 15,839-share print at $8.86, and traded as low as $8.31, down 35% from $12.87.

The rest of the day

It bounced to about $9.20 by 2:40 p.m. and settled around $8.20 to $8.60. At 3:36 p.m. it pushed to $9.50, a lower high under $12.87. It dropped to $7.84 at 3:51 p.m. and closed at $8.43, about a third below the high.

After hours another 78,830 shares traded, between $7.37 and $8.49. By 7:59 p.m. it was at $7.60.

By the close, 2.56 million shares had traded: the float changed hands about 2.4 times, at about 14 times its normal volume. It was halted six times.

What to take from it

• A halt reopen can print far from where the halt began, and the book is thin in those seconds. At 2:27:33 p.m. a 5,000-share buy would have averaged $2,305 over the screen price.
• A bid wall can vanish without trading. The $6.60 bid grew to 32,983 shares and was pulled at 10:59:35 while the stock was near $8.10.
• After the top, the next push stopped lower. $12.87 at 2:19 p.m., then $9.50 at 3:36 p.m., and an $8.43 close.