AQB on August 6, 2026: why it ran

The day, step by step

• Small cap
• Momentum
• Main move: after hours
• Thin regular session
• Catalyst: news and filings
• Pre-market high break
• After-hours spike
• Faded from the high

Pre-market: up to $1.08

The previous close was $0.9899. The first trade of the day was at 4:00 a.m., 255 shares at $1.02. After that it was quiet. The price sat near $0.99 at 8:00 a.m.

At 8:02 a.m. the company filed a 10-Q (the quarterly report). At 8:30 a.m. Newsfile Corp ran: “AquaBounty Technologies Announces Expansion of Strategic Alternatives Review to Include Power Infrastructure Development Opportunities.” At 8:34 a.m. the company filed an 8-K (a current report). The 8:30 minute traded between $0.9703 and $1.02.

The pre-market high was $1.08 at 9:04 a.m. Only 25,670 shares traded before the bell, and many minutes had no trade at all.

The open and the break of $1.08

It opened at $1.04, up 5% from the previous close. The 9:30 minute traded as low as $1.03, the low since the open.

For the next ten minutes it drifted between $1.05 and $1.07 on very little volume. At 9:43 a.m. it traded $1.10, clearing the $1.08 pre-market high. That minute had 8,333 shares, a lot for this stock that morning. The 9:47 minute had 13,233 shares and reached just over $1.12. The next minute traded $1.13. At 9:49 it touched $1.14, then fell back to $1.07 inside the same minute.

$1.20, then the drop to $1.07

It climbed in steps, reaching $1.15 at 10:22 a.m. It ran to $1.20 at 11:03 a.m., up 15% from the $1.04 open.

Then it gave much of it back. The 11:09 minute traded down to $1.10 on 3,078 shares, and at 11:19 a.m. it hit $1.07, down 11% from $1.20.

Back toward $1.20

From $1.07 at 11:20 a.m. it climbed slowly. Many minutes printed one trade or none. It reached $1.20 at 12:09 p.m. and traded $1.21 at 12:28.

The $1.22 high of the regular session printed in that 12:33 minute. The minute closed at $1.19.

The rest of the regular session

It never got back above $1.20 after that. It slipped to $1.17 by early afternoon and to $1.13 at 3:21 p.m. In the 3:58 minute, 6,011 shares traded and it dropped to $1.10. It closed at $1.07, 12% under the $1.22 high.

The regular session (9:30 to 4:00) traded 142,072 shares, about 4% of the 3.79-million-share float.

After hours: $1.05 to $2.12

After the close it traded between $1.05 and $1.10 until about 5:15 p.m. on small volume. It touched $1.05 at 4:25 p.m. It reached $1.16 at 5:18 p.m. and was at $1.12 at 6:07.

The real move started at about 6:26 p.m. at $1.20. At 6:31 it was $1.29. The 6:33 minute traded 62,938 shares. The 6:34 minute traded 274,194 shares and went from $1.55 to $1.98. It reached $2.05 at 6:36 and $2.12 at 6:52 p.m., the high of the day, up 102% from the $1.05 low at 4:25 p.m.

By 7:10 p.m., more shares had traded than exist in the whole float (3.79 million), counting the whole day. It got back to $2.03 at 7:14 but could not hold. From there it faded, and the last bar of the night, at 7:59 p.m., closed at $1.58.

After hours alone traded 5,461,449 shares. For the whole day it was 5.63 million shares, about 1.5 times the float and about 788 times its normal volume.

What to take from it

• A headline does not mean volume right away. The news came at 8:30 a.m. and the regular session still traded only 142,072 shares. The big volume came after 6:30 p.m.
• The regular-session high and the day's high can be different moments. The session topped at $1.22 and closed at $1.07, 12% lower. The day's high was $2.12, after hours.
• In thin stocks, a market order can cost more than the screen price. At 12:33:06 only 243 shares were offered at $1.21, and a 5,000-share buy averaged $1.24.

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