Hindsight Markets Small-cap stocks on September 17, 2026
DAIC on September 17, 2026: why it ran
On September 17, 2026, DAIC opened up 104.0% from the previous close of 2.01 and reached 7.12 at 9:51 a.m. ET. The exchange halted it once.
- Previous close
- 2.01
- Open, 9:30 a.m.
- 4.10
- Gap at the open
- up 104.0%
- Pre-market high
- 5.03 at 4:46 a.m.
- High, 4 a.m. to 4 p.m.
- 7.12 at 9:51 a.m.
- Low, 4 a.m. to 4 p.m.
- 2.73
- After-hours high, 4 p.m. to 8 p.m.
- 6.39 at 5:10 p.m.
- Last trade before 4:00 p.m.
- 5.32
- Volume
- 44.33 million
- Relative volume
- 5.7x
- Float
- 853,881 shares, from filings as of September 17, 2026
- Shares outstanding
- 1.21 million
Replay DAIC's day
It starts at 9:28 a.m. ET with the real Level 2, time and sales and chart, from the same feed the replay plays, stops at 9:31 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: the open
- Float traded early
- Round-number break
- Halted once
- Reopened lower
- Lower high, then faded
The day before
On September 16, DAIC opened at $2.37 and reached $4.40. It closed at $2.01.
Its last bar of that day was $3.48. So the stock was already far above its close before the 17th began.
Pre-market: the float traded by 4:20 a.m.
The first trades on the 17th were at $3.17, already above the $2.01 close. It slid to $2.73 by 4:16 a.m.
By 4:20 a.m., more shares had traded than exist in the whole float (853,881). From there it ran to $4.85 at 4:29 a.m., up 78% from the 4:16 low.
After a dip to $4.08 at 4:37 a.m., it ran to the pre-market high, $5.03 at 4:46 a.m. Then it faded to $3.80 at 5:35 a.m., down 24% from the high. By 6:07 a.m. the volume was ten times the float.
One more push came at 7 a.m. It went from $3.61 at 6:57 a.m. to $4.70 at 7:10 a.m., up 30%. Then it went quiet. 15.05 million shares traded before the bell.
The wall at $5.00
An ask wall at exactly $5.00 was first seen at 5:09 a.m., just under the pre-market high of $5.03. After the open the wall grew. It peaked at 79,479 shares at 9:34 a.m., about 9% of the float, across all exchanges.
DAIC opened at $4.10, up 104% from the $2.01 close. By 9:40 it had worked up to $4.66, under the wall.
Stop It's 9:40. DAIC is at $4.66. A big ask wall has been sitting at $5.00 since before the open, just under the $5.03 pre-market high. Would you buy here?
Press play: the real Level 2, time and sales and chart stop at 9:40 a.m. ET for your call, then show what happened. The clip starts at 9:37 a.m. ET.
Here's what happened. At 9:41:32 trades began printing at $5.00. In under a second, 62,921 shares traded at exactly $5.00 and the wall was gone. It wasn't pulled. Buyers ate it. One buy order went through 14 price levels, from $4.98 to $5.11. The 9:41 minute traded 913,184 shares.
It didn't stop at the wall. It climbed through $5.50 and $5.85, and at 9:45 it was halted (a volatility pause). The last trade was $6.36.
Stop It's 9:50. DAIC has been halted for almost five minutes. The last trade was $6.36. Trading can resume any moment. Would you buy the reopen?
Press play: the real Level 2, time and sales and chart stop at 9:50 a.m. ET for your call, then show what happened. The clip starts at 9:47 a.m. ET.
It reopened at 9:50:13 at $6.00, about 6% below where it stopped. The first print was a single trade of 136,195 shares.
$7.12 and the drop
After the reopen it ran hard, from $6.00 at 9:50 to $7.12, the high of the day, at 9:51. At 9:51 Benzinga ran the headline “CID HoldCo Stock Surges Thursday: What's Happening?”
By 9:52 it had dropped to $5.57. A new ask wall showed up at $7.00 at 9:51:50.
At 9:53 it pushed to $6.14, a lower high under the $7.12 top. Then it faded to $5.29 by 9:57.
The rest of the day
At 10:10 it fell to $4.68. A sell order went through eight levels, from $5.01 to $4.94. At 10:11 a new ask wall appeared at $6.00. It peaked at 170,073 shares at 3:36 p.m., about 20% of the float.
The rest of the day was a range. It hit $4.46 at 10:47 a.m., $5.74 at 3:36 p.m., and closed at $5.32. It stayed under the $6.14 lower high the whole afternoon.
In the regular session, 25.58 million shares traded, about 30 times the float. Counting pre-market too, that was 40.63 million, about 48 times the float. Relative volume was about 5.7. After hours added 3.70 million more shares, and the stock reached $6.39 at 5:10 p.m.
What to take from it
- A big ask wall at a round number is a level, not a ceiling. Here 62,921 shares traded at $5.00 in under a second, and the stock kept going to $6.36.
- Buying right after a wall breaks or a halt reopens costs more than the screen says. The book was thin in both seconds: $138 over the screen at the wall, $513 over at the reopen.
- A halt can reopen lower than it stopped, and the top can come right after. The halt stopped at $6.36 and reopened at $6.00. The high came about a minute after the reopen, and the next push stopped lower at $6.14.
Why it ran
News and SEC filings for DAIC published between the previous session's close and the first minute DAIC traded 20% above it, at 4:00 a.m. ET, newest first, from the same feeds the replay shows.
No news found before the move.
How it traded
Gap, run and fade. It gapped up 104.0% to 4.10 at the open, ran from the open to the high of 7.12 in 21 minutes through a halt, then gave back 60% of that move by 4:00 p.m., trading at 5.32.
| Time (ET) | What happened | Watch it |
|---|---|---|
| 4:00 a.m. | First trade 20% above the previous close of 2.01 | |
| 4:20 a.m. | Volume since 4:00 a.m. passes the whole float, 853,881 shares | |
| 4:46 a.m. | Pre-market high, 5.03 | |
| 9:30 a.m. | The open: 4.10, up 104.0% from the previous close | |
| 9:45 a.m. | Halted: LULD pause (limit up-limit down). Trading resumes at 9:50 a.m. | |
| 9:51 a.m. | High of the day to the close, 7.12 | |
| 3:59 p.m. | Last trade before the 4:00 p.m. close, 5.32, 25.3% 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: 15.05 million shares before the 9:30 a.m. open (34%), 9.60 million in the first 30 minutes (22%), and 19.68 million in the rest of the day to 8 p.m. (44%).
- Float rotation, the volume since 4 a.m. against the float of 853,881 shares: past it once at 4:20 a.m., twice at 4:24 a.m., three times at 4:28 a.m.
- The halt at 9:45 a.m.: up 37.4% in the 5 minutes into it, reopened at 6.00, down 5.7% from the last trade before it, then down 1.7% over the next 5 minutes.
- Other days DAIC met the small-cap rule in our recaps: 5, the latest on September 16, 2026.
Halts
| Halted | Resumed | Length | Reason in the feed |
|---|---|---|---|
| 9:45 a.m. | 9:50 a.m. | 5 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 DAIC on September 17, 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.