Recaps · September 22, 2026
STI, September 22: $11.00 at 4:40 a.m., then a fade to $6.85
- Small cap
- Momentum
- Main move: pre-market
- Gap and fade
- Lower high
- Float traded before the open
- Float
- 2.69 million shares
- Volume
- 3.95 million shares
- Previous close
- $7.26
- Open
- $7.99 (up 10.1%)
- High
- $11.00 at 4:40 a.m.
- Close
- $6.85
The day before
On September 21, STI traded between $6.65 and $8.43 and the official close was $7.26. Volume was 139,018 shares.
Two headlines came out that day. At 6:00 a.m. PRNewsWire carried a release that the chairman and CEO, the CFO and a board member had bought shares. At 12:19 p.m. Benzinga ran a story on insider purchases following a $1 million buyback authorization. Neither headline says anything about the next day's price.
Pre-market: the spike to $11.00
The first trades on the 22nd were at $9.18, already well above the $7.26 close. The 4:00 minute alone ran from $7.87 to $10.43.
It slid to $8.50 at 4:02 a.m. and chopped between about $8.55 and $9.50 for the next quarter hour. At 4:19 it woke up. That minute went from $9.22 to $10.31 on 94,946 shares, the busiest minute of the morning. At 4:22 it touched $10.57.
It pulled back as low as $9.32 at 4:23 and was still near $9.63 at 4:28, then pushed again. At 4:39 it ran to $10.93 on 90,366 shares. At 4:40 a.m. it hit $11.00, the high so far. By 4:42 it was trading near $10.33.
3.13 million shares traded before the bell, and the regular session added far less.
A fade and a lower high
After the top it drifted down. It was near $10.10 at 4:50 and $9.50 at 5:01. The slide picked up at 5:15, and at 5:25 a.m. it was $8.84, about 20% below the high.
It tried again. At 5:43 a.m. it reached $9.79, below the $9.89 it touched at 5:05 and well under $11.00. It faded back to the $9.30s by 5:50 and then to the $8.80s by 6:50.
At 7:00 it broke lower, down to $7.96 at 7:06. After that it held a range of roughly $7.66 to $8.44 until the open.
By 7:11 a.m., more shares had traded than exist in the whole float (2.69 million).
The open and the fade
It opened at $7.99, but the first minute dropped it to $7.35 and it closed that minute at $7.47. By 9:31 it was at $7.15, below the previous close of $7.26.
It held around $7.20 for a while, then slipped again at 9:57.
Stop It's 10:13. STI is at $6.52. It held near $7.20 for a while, then fell hard from 9:57 on heavy volume and reached about $6.50 by 10:03. For the last ten minutes it has stayed in a tight range between $6.50 and $6.63, with less volume than during the drop. It is well below the $7.26 previous close and far under the $11.00 pre-market high. Would you buy here?
Press play: the real Level 2, time and sales and chart stop at 10:13 a.m. ET for your call, then show what happened. The clip starts at 10:10 a.m. ET.
It reached $6.45 at 10:14, the low of the day.
A small bounce followed. It got back to $7.06 at 10:21, then traded between about $6.67 and $6.98 for the rest of the morning. Volume dried up. Many minutes after 10:30 traded only a few hundred shares.
It closed the regular session at $6.85.
The totals
Regular-session volume was 775,681 shares. Pre-market was 3,126,136, so most of the day's trading was done before 9:30. After hours added 49,171.
For the whole day, 3.95 million shares traded. That is about 1.5 times the 2.69 million float, at 107 times the stock's normal volume (normally about 37,000 shares a day).
What to take from it
- The biggest push came before the open. The $11.00 high was at 4:40 a.m., and the stock opened at $7.99.
- The next push stopped lower. $11.00 at 4:40 a.m.; after 5:00 a.m. it never got above $9.89 (5:05 a.m.), and the 5:43 a.m. push stopped at $9.79.
- The float had traded by 7:11 a.m. Regular-session volume was a fraction of pre-market, and the stock closed at $6.85, below the $7.26 previous close.
Replay this day
Trade STI on September 22, 2026 yourself in Hindsight Markets: the real tape, the order book and the halts, on a clock you control, with fills from the real book.