Recaps · September 18, 2026

IMCC, September 18: a 5:41 spike, one halt, and $8.65

• Small cap
• Momentum
• Main move: pre-market and the open
• Gap, run and fade
• Halted once
• Halt reopened lower
• Round-number bid
• Float traded 78x

Float

554,524 shares

Volume

44.22 million shares

Previous close

$1.74

Open

$3.24 (up 86.2%)

High

$8.65 at 10:10 a.m.

Halts

1 (10:00 a.m.)

Close

$4.20

The day before

On September 17, IMCC traded between $1.62 and $2.13. The official close was $1.74. The last bar of that day printed $2.09, above the close. No news headline is in our data for this stock on the 18th.

Pre-market: the float traded by 5:42 a.m.

The first trades on the 18th were at $1.85, already above the $1.74 close. Until 5:40 it crept between $1.85 and $2.14 on thin volume.

That changed at 5:40 a.m. In that minute it traded from $1.92 up to $2.47. At 5:41 it traded through $3.00 for the first time, and the minute closed at $4.08. By 5:42 a.m., more shares had traded than exist in the whole float (554,524). It hit $4.94 at 5:43 a.m., up 157% from the $1.92 low.

It did not hold. It fell to $3.70 at 5:46, ran to $4.70 at 5:47, then dropped to $3.20 at 5:51. Three swings in eight minutes, each of 25% or more.

The pre-market high was $5.06 at 6:18 a.m. By 6:19 the shares traded were ten times the float. Then it slid to $3.88 at 6:25, climbed to $4.98 at 6:59, and drifted down to $2.90 at 8:39 a.m., 42% under that $4.98. 13.21 million shares traded before the bell.

The open, and the $5.06 line

It opened at $3.24, up 86% from the previous close. A 27,504-share print at $3.24 came at 9:30:01. The low since the open was $2.98, also in the 9:30 minute.

Then it ran. From $3.30 at 9:31 it reached $4.76 at 9:36 and $4.85 at 9:39. After that it chopped. From 9:40 to 9:46 it stayed between $4.16 and $4.65, with the pre-market high of $5.06 sitting above.

Here's what happened. At 9:47:56 a buy order swept 34,257 shares from $4.76 to $4.84 across 8 price levels. Five seconds later another bought 63,413 shares from $4.85 to $5.03 across 19 levels. At 9:48 a.m. it cleared the $5.06 pre-market high and the minute reached $5.35.

It kept going. A 38,623-share buy sweep at 9:53:20 ran from $5.32 to $5.51, and the 9:53 minute hit $6.06.

One halt

From $3.30 at 9:31 it ran to $8.42 at 10:00 a.m., up 155%. At 10:00:53 it was halted (a volatility pause) with the last trade at $8.42.

It reopened at 10:05:53 at $7.99, 5% below where it stopped. The opening print was 63,380 shares at $7.99. The minute closed at $7.26, and the next went down hard.

It fell to $5.77 at 10:06 a.m., down 31% from $8.42. Then it came right back: a 36,565-share buy sweep at 10:06:57 ran from $5.77 to $6.02, and it reached $8.46 at 10:08, up 47% from the low.

After trading between $7.61 and $8.37 at 10:09, it hit $8.65, the high so far, at 10:10 a.m. That minute closed at $7.88.

Then it fell to $6.26 at 10:19 a.m., down 28% from $8.65.

A lower high under a wall at $8.00

From 10:16 a lot of stock was offered at exactly $8.00. The wall peaked at 79,617 shares at 10:37, about 14% of the float.

At 10:27 a.m. the stock pushed to $8.00, a lower high under the $8.65 top. It did not trade above $8.00 for the rest of the regular session. By 11:40 it was down to $4.97.

The afternoon had more walls on both sides. Around 12:15 bid walls appeared in turn: about 102,000 shares at $6.21 (pulled 12:16:44), about 101,000 at $6.16 (pulled 12:18:15), and about 70,000 at $6.18 (pulled 12:19:57). From 1:13 p.m. an ask wall sat at $6.32.

The bid at $5.00

From 12:34 p.m. on, someone was bidding for a lot of stock at exactly $5.00. It peaked at 80,212 shares at 1:31 p.m., about 14.5% of the float. For the next 50 minutes the stock held above it, mostly between $5.10 and $5.55.

The bid was eaten at 2:22:13: 22,549 shares traded at exactly $5.00 within the 2:22:12 second, and it was gone.

The 2:22 minute reached a low of $4.80, and the next went to $4.61. The $6.32 ask wall from 1:13, up to 81,086 shares, left the book at 2:40:46. By 2:45 it traded as low as $3.16. It bounced to $5.26 at 3:31 p.m., then faded again.

The close and after hours

It closed at $4.20, 51% under the $8.65 high of the day.

30.04 million shares traded in the regular session and 13.21 million before it. Through the close, that was 43.25 million shares: the float changed hands about 78 times. Including after hours, the day came to 44.22 million, over 1,000 times normal volume (normal is tiny: about 43,000 shares a day).

After hours it traded as high as $4.47 in the 4:00 p.m. minute and fell to about $3.10 by 7:29 p.m., down 31%.

What to take from it

• A halt can reopen lower than it stopped, and the book is thin right after. The 10:00 halt stopped at $8.42 and reopened at $7.99. A 5,000-share buy one second later averaged $2,147 over the screen.
• After the top, the next push stopped lower. $8.65 at 10:10, then $8.00 at 10:27, under an ask wall at $8.00.
• A big bid is not a promise. The 80,000-share bid at $5.00 was eaten at 2:22:13, with 22,549 shares trading at $5.00 in one second. The stock went on to $3.16.