Recaps · September 23, 2026

DCOY, September 23: a 7 a.m. spike to $5.22, then a slow fade to $3.81

• Small cap
• Momentum
• Main move: pre-market
• Catalyst: news (day 2)
• Ask walls
• Float traded 20x
• Lower high
• Gap and fade

News

PRNewsWire, the day before at 6:14 p.m.

Float

597,047 shares

Volume

12.44 million shares

Previous close

$3.10

Open

$4.38 (up 41.3%)

High

$5.22 at 7:07 a.m.

Close

$3.81

The day before

On September 22, DCOY ran from $2.56 to $7.61. It gave most of it back and closed at $3.10. 46.7 million shares traded that day.

Three press releases went out through PRNewsWire. At 7:30 a.m.: Decoy Therapeutics Exploring Pan-Filovirus Program via FDA Animal Rule Pathway and Non-Dilutive Funding. At 12:50 p.m.: Decoy Therapeutics, Inc. Announces a Warrant Inducement Transaction for $3.85 Million in Gross Proceeds Priced At-The-Market under Nasdaq Rules.

The third came after the close. At 6:14 p.m.: Decoy Therapeutics, Inc. Issues Correction to Warrant Inducement Transaction Press Release. After hours the stock was back up to $3.73.

Pre-market: the float traded by 5:01 a.m.

The first bar on the 23rd opened at $3.72, already above the $3.10 close. For the next hour it sat between about $3.63 and $4.03 on small volume.

At 4:59 a.m. it woke up. In two minutes it went from $3.92 to $4.38. By 5:01 a.m., more shares had traded than exist in the whole float (597,047).

The spike didn't hold. It fell to $3.63 at 5:06 a.m., down 18% from the $4.40 high at 5:01. A second push at 5:46 took it to $4.36 at 5:50, then it settled.

At 6:45 a.m. it closed at $4.02. From there it crept along between about $4.02 and $4.10, trading very little.

7 a.m.: a quiet stretch

Here's what happened. The 7:00 minute went from $4.09 to $4.44 on 102,119 shares. The next minute traded 380,880 shares. At 7:01:41 one buy order swept 24,588 shares from $4.75 to $4.90, across 14 price levels. It ran from $4.02 at 6:46 to $5.20 at 7:03, up 29%.

At 7:01:42, the second after that sweep, an ask wall first appeared at $6.00. At 7:05:13 another appeared at $5.50.

At 7:04:33 a sell order swept 35,053 shares from $4.90 down to $4.80, and the minute closed at $4.62. It bounced from $4.61 at 7:05. At 7:07 it hit $5.22, the high so far. Within a minute it was back at $4.83. 8.14 million shares traded before the bell.

Walls above, a lower high

After the top it fell to $4.20 at 7:14 a.m., down 20% from $5.22. A wall at $5.20 appeared at 7:13:30. By 7:37 a.m. the volume was ten times the float.

At 7:28:25 an ask wall appeared at $5.00. It grew to 87,505 shares at 8:50:32, 14.7% of the float. Five seconds later a wall showed up at $4.80, peaking at 41,530 at 8:53:09.

In between, it drifted down to $4.03 at 8:10 a.m., 15% below the $4.72 high at 7:29. It came back once more. At 9:12 a.m. it pushed to $4.78, a lower high under the $5.22 top, and it never reached the $5.00 wall.

The open

It opened at $4.38, up 41% from the previous close. At 9:30:01 a single print of 89,435 shares went through at $4.45. The 9:30 minute traded 318,645 shares.

At 9:44:03 a sell order swept 23,567 shares from $4.36 to $4.31, and the minute dipped to $4.08. At 9:48:33 a wall at $5.50 peaked at 79,778 shares (13.4% of the float).

Here's what happened. At 10:16:53 a sell order swept 23,033 shares from $4.01 down to $3.93. At 10:17:06 another took 20,859 shares from $3.97 to $3.79, across 19 levels. The low of that move was $3.78 at 10:18. At 10:20:24 a buy sweep of 21,519 shares ran $3.90 to $3.94.

After that it chopped between about $3.75 and $4.17. At 12:40 it touched $3.75, its low after the open. A bid wall appeared at $3.50 at 2:50 p.m. and peaked at 53,760 shares at 3:59 p.m. The stock closed at $3.81.

From 4 a.m. to the 4 p.m. close, 12.20 million shares traded: the float changed hands about 20 times, at about 5 times its normal volume.

After hours

After the bell it drifted up to $4.00 at 4:59 p.m. At 5:02 p.m. the company filed an 8-K (a current report). The stock traded around $3.99 then, and was at $3.93 by 5:04 p.m. 243,031 shares traded after hours.

What to take from it

• After the top, the next push stopped lower. $5.22 at 7:07 a.m., then $4.78 at 9:12 a.m., under walls at $5.00 and $5.50.
• It faded into the close. It closed at $3.81, 27% below the $5.22 high.
• The float traded over before the open. By 5:01 a.m. more shares had traded than the float holds.