Recaps · September 18, 2026

CPOP, September 18: a 4:28 a.m. spike to $5.98, one halt, and $4.18

• Small cap
• Momentum
• Main move: pre-market
• Gap, run and fade
• Lower high
• Halted once
• Float traded 6x

Float

628,324 shares

Volume

4.00 million shares

Previous close

$3.71

Open

$4.72 (up 27.1%)

High

$5.98 at 4:28 a.m.

Halts

1 (10:28 a.m.)

Close

$4.18

The day before

On September 17, CPOP traded between $3.05 and $4.93 and closed at $3.71. Its last trade of that evening was $4.84, well above the close.

Pre-market: the float traded by 4:34 a.m.

The first trades on the 18th were at $4.35, already above the $3.71 close. Until 4:27 it drifted between about $4.22 and $4.80 on thin volume.

At 4:27 a.m. it started to move, from $4.57. In the next minute it ran to $5.98, the high so far, at 4:28 a.m., up 61% from the previous close. That one minute traded 128,682 shares. The next minute it dropped to $4.23.

It tried again. At 4:34 a.m. it pushed to $5.58, a lower high under the $5.98 top. By 4:43 it was at $4.71 and still falling.

By the end of the 4:34 minute, more shares had traded than exist in the whole float (628,324). That was seven minutes after the first spike began.

There was a third push at 8:37 a.m. It reached $5.15 at 8:39. At 8:39:14 one buy order swept 13,208 shares from $4.96 to $5.00 across 5 levels. The next minute it touched $5.18, then dropped to $4.66. A smaller try at 8:47 reached $5.04. 2.89 million shares traded before the bell.

The open and the push after 9:30

It opened at $4.72, up 27% from the previous close. The first minutes went nowhere. At 9:34 it started up, and it reached $5.35 at 9:43.

At 10:07:01 one buy order swept 10,538 shares from $5.36 to $5.43 across 6 levels. $5.43 was the high since the open. By the end of that minute it was back at $5.11. At 10:11 it dropped to $4.78.

The slide from $5.43

From 10:11 on it slid. $4.57 at 10:22. $4.29 at 10:26. Then it fell through $4.20.

At 10:28:27 it was halted (a volatility pause) with the last trade at $4.00. It reopened ten minutes later, at 10:38:27. The first print was 11,173 shares at $3.99.

The reopen was not the bottom. At 10:41 it fell to $3.70, and at 10:44 it hit $3.38, the low of the day. That is 43% under the $5.98 high.

The rest of the day

It bounced at 11:00 and traded above $4 for a minute or two. Then it settled into a thin range, mostly between $3.70 and $4.25 for the rest of the session. Many minutes had no trades at all.

It closed at $4.18, 30% under the $5.98 high. That high came before the bell, at 4:28 a.m., 27% above where it opened.

Pre-market and the regular session together traded 3.94 million shares, about 6 times the float. The regular session was 1.05 million of that. The whole day ran at about 51 times normal volume.

What to take from it

• After the top, the next push stopped lower. $5.98 at 4:28 a.m., then $5.58 at 4:34 a.m.
• A halt reopen is not a floor. CPOP reopened at $3.99 and still fell another 61 cents. A buy right at the reopen also paid more than the screen showed.
• The float traded over early in pre-market. By the end of the 4:34 a.m. minute, more shares had traded than the float holds, and the biggest spike of the day was already done.