Recaps · August 28, 2026

QNRX, August 28: two 6:00 headlines, $10.80, and a bid eaten at $6.95

• Small cap
• Momentum
• Main move: pre-market
• Catalyst: news
• Gap, run and fade
• Lower high
• Bid wall eaten
• Float traded 8x

Float

2.01 million shares

Volume

15.77 million shares

Previous close

$4.81

Open

$7.25 (up 50.7%)

High

$10.80 at 6:13 a.m.

Close

$6.15

The day before

On August 27, QNRX traded between $4.67 and $5.25 and opened at $5.13. The official close was $4.81. Volume was 12,938 shares. That is a very quiet stock: the float is 2.01 million shares.

Pre-market: the float traded by 6:24 a.m.

At 6:00 a.m. GlobeNewsWire ran two headlines. One was “Quoin Pharmaceuticals Announces Private Placement Financing of Up to $50.0 Million”. The other was “Quoin Pharmaceuticals Reports Positive Interim Data from Ongoing Phase 2/3 Study of QRX003 in Netherton Syndrome”.

The first trades came in the 6:01 minute at $6.69, already above the $4.81 close. Then it ran. From $6.21 at 6:02 it hit $8.96 at 6:03, up 44%. From $7.39 at 6:05 it hit $9.45 at 6:07.

The big push came at 6:13. From $8.68 at 6:10 it ran to $10.80, the high so far, at 6:13 a.m. That is 125% above the previous close. Within two minutes it was back at $9.46.

Then it fell to $6.89 at 6:21 a.m., down 36% from the top. By 6:24 a.m., more shares had traded than exist in the whole float (2.01 million).

It tried again. At 6:41 a.m. it pushed to $8.30, a lower high under $10.80. After that it slid. It was near $6.40 at 7:00, then climbed back above $7 and traded mostly between $6.78 and $7.82 from 7:22 to 9:29. 8.94 million shares traded before the bell.

The open, and the walls on both sides

It opened at $7.25, up 51% from the previous close. A 23,068-share print at $7.22 came at 9:30:00. The 9:30 minute swung between $7.01 and $7.68, and two buy sweeps went through in the first seconds. The regular-session high so far came at 9:36 at $8.25.

At 9:40 a.m. Benzinga ran: “Quoin Pharmaceuticals Stock Surges Friday: What's Happening?”.

Now the part a chart doesn't show. A bid wall had been sitting at $6.46 since 9:45. It peaked at 26,151 shares at 9:57. Above the price, an ask wall appeared at $8.00 at 9:50. It peaked at 37,133 shares at 10:04, about 1.8% of the float. The stock sat between the two.

Here's what happened. At 10:08:33 a 32,205-share sell order went through 22 price levels, from $7.10 down to $6.89. The 10:08 candle hit $6.55 and closed at $6.77. At 10:08:40 the $6.46 bid was pulled. Four seconds later a new bid wall showed up at $6.66.

The bid at $6.95

The $6.66 bid peaked at 25,357 shares at 10:14 and was pulled at 10:17. Right after, at 10:17:45, a new bid wall appeared at exactly $6.95. It grew to 30,798 shares at 10:29, about 1.5% of the float. For 14 minutes the price stayed near it.

Here's what happened. Trades at exactly $6.95 ran from 10:31:31 to 10:31:35. In 3.6 seconds, 14,520 shares traded at $6.95 and the wall was gone. A 17,729-share sell sweep ran from $6.95 to $6.84 at 10:31:35, one second before the wall was marked eaten. The 10:31 candle dropped to $6.59 on 106,406 shares.

The company filed an 8-K in that same minute, 10:31. The filing and the wall breaking landed together, and nothing in the data tells us whether they are connected.

The rest of the day

It kept fading. At 10:55 a candle dropped to $6.15 on 76,575 shares, and $5.95 at 10:59 was the low after the open. After that volume was much lighter. From noon on it held between $6.03 and $7.04, reached $7.04 at 2:05 p.m., and closed the regular session at $6.15.

By the close, 6.69 million shares had traded in the regular session, on top of the 8.94 million before the bell. For the whole day, 15.77 million shares traded: the float changed hands about 8 times, at over 1,000 times its normal volume. The day before, the stock traded 12,938 shares.

After hours

After the close the price fell to $5.67 at 4:28 p.m., recovered to $6.32 at 6:00 p.m., and was at $5.74 by 7:58 p.m. Volume was thin, 136,699 shares in total. Two Form 4s were filed at 6:39 and 6:40 p.m.

What to take from it

• After the top, the next push stopped lower. $10.80 at 6:13 a.m., then $8.30 at 6:41 a.m.
• A big bid wall is a level, not a floor. The $6.95 bid held for 14 minutes and was gone in 3.6 seconds once sellers hit it.
• Most of the move was gone by the close. It closed at $6.15, 43% below the $10.80 high, and the float had traded before the open.