Hindsight Markets Small-cap stocks on August 20, 2026
PCLA on August 20, 2026: why it ran
On August 20, 2026, PCLA opened down 0.8% from the previous close of 6.40 and reached 12.87 at 2:19 p.m. ET. The exchange halted it 6 times.
- Previous close
- 6.40
- Open, 9:30 a.m.
- 6.35
- Gap at the open
- down 0.8%
- Pre-market high
- 6.70 at 4:20 a.m.
- High, 4 a.m. to 4 p.m.
- 12.87 at 2:19 p.m.
- Low, 4 a.m. to 4 p.m.
- 6.21
- After-hours high, 4 p.m. to 8 p.m.
- 8.49 at 4:00 p.m.
- Last trade before 4:00 p.m.
- 8.43
- Volume
- 2.64 million
- Relative volume
- 14.1x
- Float
- 1.05 million shares, from filings as of August 20, 2026
- Shares outstanding
- 4.15 million
Replay PCLA's day
It starts at 10:00 a.m. ET with the real Level 2, time and sales and chart, from the same feed the replay plays, stops at 10:03 a.m. and asks what you would do. Or press Play on any moment in How it traded.
The day, step by step
- Small cap
- Momentum
- Main move: intraday
- No headline in the data
- Pre-market high break
- Halted six times
- Bid wall pulled
- Float traded 2.4x
Before the open
On August 19, PCLA traded between $6.15 and $6.79 on 28,478 shares. The official close was $6.40. The float is small, about 1.05 million shares.
No headline is in our data for August 20. Pre-market was thin: 2,057 shares in all. The pre-market high was $6.70 at 4:20 a.m. At 7:43 a.m. it dipped to $6.21, the low of the day.
It opened at $6.35, below the $6.40 close. Then it did very little. Until 10:06 it stayed between $6.34 and $6.49. At 10:09 it cleared the pre-market high of $6.70.
Stop It's 10:10. PCLA is at $6.80, above the $6.70 pre-market high. From the 9:30 open until 10:06 it stayed between $6.34 and $6.49. Would you buy here?
Press play: the real Level 2, time and sales and chart stop at 10:10 a.m. ET for your call, then show what happened. The clip starts at 10:07 a.m. ET.
10:10 to 10:46: four halts
The 10:10 minute reached $7.30 on 3,007 shares. The 10:11 minute reached $7.90 on 8,292 shares. At 10:12:14 it was halted (a volatility pause) after a $7.93 print.
It reopened at 10:17:14. The 10:17 minute opened at $8.30.
The stock ran to $9.13 and was halted again at 10:17:33. That halt lasted ten minutes. It came back at 10:27:34 at $10.30, higher than where it stopped. A single print of 15,206 shares crossed at $10.30 on the reopen. The 10:27 minute went to $11.33 on 74,226 shares, about 7% of the float in one minute.
It pushed to $10.79 at 10:29. At 10:30:36 it was halted a third time, after a minute that had traded as low as $9.18. It reopened at 10:35:36. That minute opened at $8.88 and fell to $7.99. At 10:36:09 it was halted a fourth time. The reopen came at 10:46:09. The 10:46 minute opened at $7.23 and ranged from $7.94 down to $6.55, 42% under the $11.33 high from 10:27, on 82,578 shares.
The bid at $6.60
The 10:47 minute traded as low as $6.65. At 10:49:28 a bid showed up at exactly $6.60, below the market. It peaked at 32,983 shares, about 3% of the float, across all exchanges. The stock had touched $6.55 in the 10:46 minute, five cents under it.
Stop It's 10:50. PCLA is at $7.23, up from the $6.55 low four minutes ago. A bid for as many as 32,983 shares sits at $6.60, below the market. Would you buy here?
Press play: the real Level 2, time and sales and chart stop at 10:50 a.m. ET for your call, then show what happened. The clip starts at 10:47 a.m. ET.
It kept climbing. At 10:55:00 a 13,799-share sell order went through three price levels, $8.21 to $8.11, inside 50 milliseconds. That same minute still reached $8.54, 28% above the $6.65 low of the 10:47 minute.
At 10:59:35 the $6.60 bid was pulled. The size left the book without trading there. The stock was around $8.10 by then. It did not come back to $6.60 in the next three hours.
Three hours of chop
From 11:00 to 2 p.m. it stayed between $7.34 (11:40) and $8.42 (1:49 p.m.). Minute volume was often a few hundred to a few thousand shares. Some minutes had no trades at all.
At 1:32 p.m. it traded as low as $7.78. By 2:07 p.m. it had reached $10.58, up 36% from that low. By that minute, more shares had traded than exist in the whole float (1.05 million).
2:11 p.m.: back above $11
It dipped to $9.70 at 2:11 p.m. and went to $11.72 at 2:14 p.m. The next minute it dipped to $10.72. By 2:17 it was back to $11.23, under the 2:14 high.
Stop It's 2:17. PCLA is at $11.23, under the $11.72 high from 2:14. More than 1.05 million shares, the whole float, have already traded. Would you buy here?
Press play: the real Level 2, time and sales and chart stop at 2:17 p.m. ET for your call, then show what happened. The clip starts at 2:14 p.m. ET.
The 2:17 minute reached $12.31. The 2:18 minute reached $12.72. At 2:19 p.m. it hit $12.87, the high of the day, 101% above the $6.40 close. The 2:20 minute traded as low as $11.25.
At 2:22:32 p.m. it was halted with the price near $10.82. It reopened at 2:27:32 with a 17,377-share print at $10.82.
At 2:28:07 it was halted a sixth time. It reopened at 2:38:07 with a 15,839-share print at $8.86, and traded as low as $8.31, down 35% from $12.87.
The rest of the day
It bounced to about $9.20 by 2:40 p.m. and settled around $8.20 to $8.60. At 3:36 p.m. it pushed to $9.50, a lower high under $12.87. It dropped to $7.84 at 3:51 p.m. and closed at $8.43, about a third below the high.
After hours another 78,830 shares traded, between $7.37 and $8.49. By 7:59 p.m. it was at $7.60.
By the close, 2.56 million shares had traded: the float changed hands about 2.4 times, at about 14 times its normal volume. It was halted six times.
What to take from it
- A halt reopen can print far from where the halt began, and the book is thin in those seconds. At 2:27:33 p.m. a 5,000-share buy would have averaged $2,305 over the screen price.
- A bid wall can vanish without trading. The $6.60 bid grew to 32,983 shares and was pulled at 10:59:35 while the stock was near $8.10.
- After the top, the next push stopped lower. $12.87 at 2:19 p.m., then $9.50 at 3:36 p.m., and an $8.43 close.
Why it ran
News and SEC filings for PCLA published between the previous session's close and the first minute PCLA traded 20% above it, at 10:11 a.m. ET, newest first, from the same feeds the replay shows.
No news found before the move.
How it traded
Intraday run. It opened down 0.8% at 6.35, then ran from the open to the high of 12.87 in 289 minutes through 4 halts.
| Time (ET) | What happened | Watch it |
|---|---|---|
| 4:20 a.m. | Pre-market high, 6.70 | |
| 9:30 a.m. | The open: 6.35, down 0.8% from the previous close | |
| 10:11 a.m. | First trade 20% above the previous close of 6.40 | |
| 10:12 a.m. | Halted: LULD pause (limit up-limit down). Trading resumes at 10:17 a.m. | |
| 10:17 a.m. | Halted: LULD pause (limit up-limit down). Trading resumes at 10:27 a.m. | |
| 10:30 a.m. | Halted: LULD pause (limit up-limit down). Trading resumes at 10:35 a.m. | |
| 10:36 a.m. | Halted: LULD pause (limit up-limit down). Trading resumes at 10:46 a.m. | |
| 2:07 p.m. | Volume since 4:00 a.m. passes the whole float, 1.05 million shares | |
| 2:19 p.m. | High of the day to the close, 12.87 | |
| 2:22 p.m. | Halted: LULD pause (limit up-limit down). Trading resumes at 2:27 p.m. | |
| 2:28 p.m. | Halted: LULD pause (limit up-limit down). Trading resumes at 2:38 p.m. | |
| 3:59 p.m. | Last trade before the 4:00 p.m. close, 8.43, 34.5% below the high |
The shape is a fixed rule, not a judgement: gapped 10% or more at the open, ran 10% or more from the open to the high, and faded if it gave back 30% or more of that move by the close.
The day in numbers
- Volume, from the one-minute bars: 2,057 shares before the 9:30 a.m. open (0%), 1,744 in the first 30 minutes (0%), and 2.63 million in the rest of the day to 8 p.m. (100%).
- Float rotation, the volume since 4 a.m. against the float of 1.05 million shares: past it once at 2:07 p.m., twice at 2:38 p.m.
- The halt at 10:12 a.m.: up 21.1% in the 5 minutes into it, reopened at 8.30, up 4.7% from the last trade before it.
- The halt at 10:17 a.m.: up 15.1% in the 5 minutes into it, reopened at 10.30, up 12.8% from the last trade before it, then down 10.9% over the next 5 minutes.
- The halt at 10:30 a.m.: up 0.5% in the 5 minutes into it, reopened at 8.88, down 3.3% from the last trade before it, then down 10.0% over the next 5 minutes.
- The halt at 10:36 a.m.: down 13.0% in the 5 minutes into it, reopened at 7.23, down 9.5% from the last trade before it, then unchanged over the next 5 minutes.
- The halt at 2:22 p.m.: down 10.4% in the 5 minutes into it, reopened at 10.82, unchanged from the last trade before it, then down 10.0% over the next 5 minutes.
- The halt at 2:28 p.m.: down 10.0% in the 5 minutes into it, reopened at 8.86, down 9.0% from the last trade before it, then up 0.5% over the next 5 minutes.
- Other days PCLA met the small-cap rule in our recaps: 3, the latest on September 11, 2026.
Halts
| Halted | Resumed | Length | Reason in the feed |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10:12 a.m. | 10:17 a.m. | 5 min 0 s | LULD pause (limit up-limit down) |
| 10:17 a.m. | 10:27 a.m. | 10 min 0 s | LULD pause (limit up-limit down) |
| 10:30 a.m. | 10:35 a.m. | 5 min 0 s | LULD pause (limit up-limit down) |
| 10:36 a.m. | 10:46 a.m. | 10 min 0 s | LULD pause (limit up-limit down) |
| 2:22 p.m. | 2:27 p.m. | 5 min 0 s | LULD pause (limit up-limit down) |
| 2:28 p.m. | 2:38 p.m. | 10 min 0 s | LULD pause (limit up-limit down) |
On this date the LULD plan ran under Amendment 18, in force from February 24, 2020: no band doubling at the open, and the closing doubling only for Tier 1 stocks and Tier 2 stocks whose previous close was at or below three dollars. See LULD halts or work out a band with the LULD calculator.
Trade this day
Replay PCLA on August 20, 2026 in Hindsight Markets: the real tape, the order book and the halts, on a clock you control, and see where your orders would have filled.