Hindsight Markets Recaps Small-cap stocks on October 23, 2026
AARD, October 23: news, three halts, and a pre-market spike to $5.41
AARD spiked to $5.41 before the open after news, then gave much of it back in the session.
News via Stock News API
What happened
Before the open
The news came first: news at 4:05 p.m. the day before. Before the bell it reached $5.41, on 2.6M shares.
The open
It opened down 24%, at $2.99.
The halts
Each halt froze the price and reopened it somewhere new. The exchange halted it three times, from 9:39 a.m. to 9:51 a.m.
The close
It closed at $1.46, 73% under its high.
What to take from it: The move happened before the bell. The regular session never got back to the pre-market high.
The details
How it traded, step by step
Pre-market spike. Before the open it spiked 37.0% from $3.95 to $5.41 at 4:00 a.m.. It opened down 24.3% at $2.99 and traded at $1.46 at 4:00 p.m.
| Time (ET) | What happened |
|---|---|
| Oct 22, 4:05 p.m. | News (GlobeNewsWire): Aardvark Therapeutics Announces FDA Has Lifted the Clinical Hold on ARD-101 for the Treatment of Prader-Willi Syndrome and Will Host Webcast to Review the Available Exploratory Phase 3 HERO/OLE Data |
| 4:00 a.m. | First trade 20% above the previous close of $3.95 |
| 4:00 a.m. | Pre-market high, $5.41 |
| 4:00 a.m. | High of the day to the close, $5.41 |
| 9:30 a.m. | The open: $2.99, down 24.3% from the previous close |
| 3:59 p.m. | Last trade before the 4:00 p.m. close, $1.46, 73.1% below the high |
The shape's name comes from a fixed rule, not a judgement (how shapes are named). Halts are in the halt table below.
The day in numbers
- Previous close
- $3.95
- Open, 9:30 a.m.
- $2.99
- Gap at the open
- −24.3%
- Pre-market high
- $5.41 at 4:00 a.m.
- High, 4 a.m. to 4 p.m.
- $5.41 at 4:00 a.m.
- Low, 4 a.m. to 4 p.m.
- $1.40
- Close, 4 p.m.
- $1.46
- Change at 4 p.m.
- −63.2%
- After-hours high, 4 p.m. to 8 p.m.
- $1.56 at 4:33 p.m.
- Volume, 4 a.m. to 4 p.m.
- 6.52 million
- Volume after hours, 4 p.m. to 8 p.m.
- 305,628
- Relative volume by 8 p.m.
- 59.4×
- Float
- 18.46 million shares, from filings as of October 23, 2026
- Shares outstanding
- 21.88 million
- From news to the move: the first trade 20% above the previous close came 11 hours 55 minutes after the latest news item before it (GlobeNewsWire, Oct 22, 4:05 p.m.).
- Volume, from the one-minute bars: 2.56 million shares before the 9:30 a.m. open (38%), 847,006 in the first 30 minutes (12%), and 3.42 million in the rest of the day to 8 p.m. (50%).
- Other days AARD met the small-cap rule in our recaps: 1, the latest on October 22, 2026.
On the day's lists: the intraday runners. It is here because it was in play on the intraday runners: up 30% or more on $3 million or more really traded, outside the small-cap rule's price, relative volume or float, its high reached $1 or more and it started the day at $20 or under (the rule every page uses).
Halts (3)
| Halted | Resumed | Length | The 5 minutes into it | Reopened at, against the last trade | The 5 minutes after | Reason in the feed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 9:39 a.m. | 9:44 a.m. | 5 min 0 s | down 15.7% | $2.25, unchanged | down 14.7% | LULD pause (limit up-limit down) |
| 9:45 a.m. | 9:50 a.m. | 5 min 0 s | down 14.7% | $1.99, up 3.6% | up 8.0% | LULD pause (limit up-limit down) |
| 9:51 a.m. | 9:56 a.m. | 5 min 0 s | up 12.0% | $2.16, up 0.5% | up 1.6% | LULD pause (limit up-limit down) |
Halt bands that day: the LULD plan's Amendment 18 rules (what that means, LULD calculator).
How we read the data, name a day's shape and pick the stocks: methodology.
Trade this day
Replay AARD on October 23, 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.