Recaps · September 30, 2026

CMCT, September 30: two halts, a $3.43 bid wall, and $3.85

• Small cap
• Momentum
• Main move: the morning
• No fresh news
• Halt run
• Halted twice, faded
• Float traded 3.7x

Float

2.95 million shares

Volume

11.13 million shares

Previous close

$1.92

Open

$1.93 (up 0.5%)

High

$3.85 at 10:36 a.m.

Halts

2 (10:11 a.m. and 10:27 a.m.)

Close

$2.93

Before the run

On September 29, CMCT closed at $1.92. The only news in the data is a preferred stock dividend announcement from 8:00 that morning. Nothing in the data shows a catalyst on the 30th.

There was no pre-market volume. It opened at $1.93 at 9:30 and then barely traded. Many minutes had no trades at all. It crept to $2.15 by 9:48 on a handful of small prints. The stock has a float of about 2.95 million shares and traded 13,241 shares the day before.

9:57 to 10:11: the first push

At 9:57 the volume came in. That one minute traded 8,106 shares, more than the whole morning before it, and the stock went from $2.16 to $2.42. It pulled back to $2.16 by 9:59.

At 10:02 it hit $2.67 on 14,415 shares, then dropped to $2.14 by 10:04. It was choppy. At 10:10 it jumped to $2.70, and in the 10:11 minute it reached $2.78.

At 10:11:20 it was halted (a volatility pause) at $2.78. It reopened at 10:16:20.

The first reopen

The first trade after the halt was a single print of 41,113 shares at $2.76, at 10:16:20. The 10:16 minute then ran from $2.76 to $2.80 and fell to $2.35, and it traded 166,403 shares.

The 10:16 minute closed at $2.46, and the next minute closed at $2.53. The reopen did not hold its first price.

Back above $3.00

At 10:19 it reached $3.00, and at 10:20 reached $3.18. At 10:21 it fell back to $2.63, and 10:22 reached $2.40. Then it climbed again from $2.48 at 10:24.

Here's what happened. At 10:27:40 a bid for a lot of stock appeared at exactly $3.43. At its peak, at 10:27:52, there were 135,803 shares bid there, about 4.6% of the float.

That minute the stock went from $3.06 to $3.43, and at 10:27:53 it was halted (a volatility pause). The halt lasted five minutes.

The bid stayed on the book through the halt. At the reopen, 10:32:53, a single print of 116,330 shares went through at $3.40. Another 443 shares traded at exactly $3.43. The wall was pulled at 10:32:54. A 17,612-share sell order swept 25 price levels, from $3.43 down to $3.17, in the same second as the reopen.

The top at $3.85

By the end of 10:33, more shares had traded than exist in the whole float (2.95 million). The reopen minute alone did 320,279 shares.

Above the price, two ask walls showed up. One was about 37,530 shares at $3.87, seen from 10:32:46. At 10:35:22 it was pulled, and a wall of up to 35,944 shares appeared at $3.99. A 33,877-share buy swept 16 levels, from $3.40 to $3.55, at 10:35:11.

It hit $3.85, the high so far, in the 10:36 minute. The $3.99 wall was pulled at 10:36:50. A 17,403-share sell swept 7 levels down from $3.67 at 10:36:41.

The slide and the bid at $2.72

From the top it fell. Sells swept 12 levels from $3.27 to $3.16 at 10:40:02. At 10:41 it traded $2.87. At 10:43 it pushed to $3.14, a lower high under the $3.85 top.

From 10:51:49 a bid sat at exactly $2.72.

The $2.72 bid peaked at 33,606 shares at 10:52:30, about 1.1% of the float. At 10:52:48 the wall was hit. In under a second, 26,194 shares traded at exactly $2.72. It wasn't pulled. Sellers ate it. A 31,662-share sell order swept six levels from $2.73 to $2.68. The stock closed that minute at $2.69.

The rest of the day

It drifted lower, then made three afternoon pushes. It was $2.51 at 11:18 and $2.40 at 11:57. It rose to $2.85 at 1:30 p.m. and to $3.10 at 2:53 p.m., stalling under an ask wall of up to 50,232 shares at $3.11 (on the book 2:52 to 2:53). It tried again at 3:32 p.m., reaching $3.09 under a 34,158-share ask wall at $3.20.

It closed at $2.93 in the regular session. After hours it moved between $2.80 and $3.14.

By the close, 10.84 million shares had traded: the float changed hands about 3.7 times, at a relative volume of 876.

What to take from it

• A huge bid can be pulled right at a reopen. Here a 135,803-share bid at $3.43 sat through the halt, was pulled at 10:32:54, and a sell sweep reached $3.17 within the reopen second.
• At both halt reopens, the screen price understated the real fill. The two reopen fills cost $52 and $84 more than the screen showed (and a fill near the high cost $105 more), and the first reopen price did not hold.
• There was no fresh news on the day. About 10.8 million shares traded in the regular session in a stock with a 2.95 million float that traded 13,241 shares the day before.