Recaps · August 21, 2026

MFI, August 21: a tiny float, six halts, and $15.00

• Small cap
• Momentum
• Tiny float
• Intraday run
• Halted six times
• Halt reopens
• Faded to the close

Float

525,597 shares

Volume

171,626 shares

Previous close

$8.62

Open

$8.63 (up 0.1%)

High

$15.00 at 12:17 p.m.

Halts

6 (10:08 a.m. and 12:06 p.m. and 12:12 p.m. and 12:17 p.m. and 12:22 p.m. and 1:09 p.m.)

Close

$9.61

The day before, and a quiet open

On August 20, MFI traded 8,977 shares and the official close was $8.62. At 8:15 a.m. that day, a press release said the company had launched new corporate and investor relations websites. That is all the news in the data.

Nothing traded pre-market. The float is only 525,597 shares, and normal volume is about 2,200 shares a day. The first trade came at the 9:30 open, one share at $8.63. The next trade was at 9:51, at $8.75.

10:08 to noon: a halt, then a slow grind

At 10:08:52 it was halted (a volatility pause). It reopened at 10:18:52. The first bar after that, at 10:19, opened at $10.16, well above the $8.75 of the last bar before the halt.

Then it chopped on very thin volume. Many minutes had no trades at all. It touched $10.49 at 10:31, fell to $9.67 at 10:37, and was back at $10.50 at 10:42. After 11:00 it slipped as low as $9.50 at 11:09, and traded $9.57 at 11:52.

At 11:55 volume picked up: 1,595 shares in one minute, at $10.00. That was more than the 10:41 minute (1,584 shares), the busiest minute of the morning up to then.

12:02: the run starts

From 12:02 it climbed fast: $10.70 at 12:02, $11.42 at 12:03, $11.81 at 12:06. At 12:06:36 it was halted, and it reopened at 12:11:36.

The 12:11 minute ran from $12.00 to $13.20 on 8,593 shares.

At 12:12:04 it was halted again, last trade $13.20. It reopened at 12:17:04. The 12:17 minute opened at $13.64 and hit $15.00, the high so far, on 17,733 shares.

At 12:17:28 it was halted a fourth time. It reopened at 12:22:28 at $14.87. At 12:22:28 a single print of 10,717 shares went through at $14.87.

The drop and the fifth halt

The 12:22 minute traded 24,308 shares, the most of any minute that day, and closed at $13.41. At 12:22:57 it was halted again, this time for ten minutes, until 12:32:57.

The stock reopened well below $14.87. The 12:32 minute went as low as $11.69. At 12:34 it hit $11.05, down from $15.00.

It bounced. At 12:36 it pushed to $12.41, a lower high under the $15.00 top. After that it slid, to $10.85 at 12:42 and then sideways around $11 for the next 20 minutes.

1:04 p.m.: the slide and the sixth halt

At 1:04 p.m. it began to slip: $10.52 at 1:05 p.m., $10.01 at 1:08 p.m. At 1:09:39 p.m. it was halted a sixth time. The 1:09 p.m. bar had gone down to $9.39. It reopened at 1:14:39 p.m.

The 1:14 p.m. bar opened at $9.40 and closed at $9.68. It bounced to $10.84 at 1:18 p.m., then fell back to $9.11 by 1:24 p.m.

The rest of the day

There were no more halts. The stock traded mostly between about $9.05 and $9.75 on very little volume, after a brief pop to $10.20 at 1:35 p.m. Then $9.51 repeated over and over, then $9.05 at 3:17 p.m. The last regular-session bar, 3:59, ran from $9.10 to $9.65 and closed at $9.61.

After hours it ranged from $8.50 at 4:22 p.m. to $9.90 at 7:42 p.m. 6,756 shares traded after the close.

By the close, 164,870 shares had traded, about 74 times its normal volume. That is roughly 31% of the float.

What to take from it

• On a tiny float, the screen price at a halt reopen can be far from what you pay. Here, 5,000 shares cost $6,309 more than the screen at 12:11 and $7,192 more at 1:14 p.m.
• The $15.00 high came in the 12:17 reopen minute and was matched once in the 12:22 reopen minute. After the 12:32:57 reopen, highs kept getting lower. $13.20 at 12:32, then $12.41 at 12:36.
• Most of the move was gone by the close. The last regular-session bar closed at $9.61, 36% below the $15.00 high and only 4 cents above the $9.57 of 11:52.