Trump-linked stocks get a boost after social media venture raises $1 bln

Remark Holdings

06/12/2021 13:39

Dec 6 (Reuters) - Shares of a clutch of companies linked to
former U.S President Donald Trump rose in premarket trading on
Monday, after his new social media venture said it had raised
nearly $1 billion from a group of unidentified investors.
    Digital World Acquisition Corp  DWAC.O , the blank-check
acquisition firm that plans to take Trump Media & Technology
Group Corp public, rose more than 9%.
    CF Acquisition Corp VI  CFVI.O  jumped 21%, while Phunware
 PHUN.O  was up 2%.  urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL1N2SP0DN
    Phunware was hired by Trump's 2020 Presidential re-election
campaign to build a phone app and SPAC CF Acquisition Corp VI
recently announced plans to list Canadian video platform Rumble
Inc, which Trump joined in June.
    The hype around Digital World's merger with Trump Media &
Technology Group in October sent Phunware and Remark Holdings in
a rally that market specialists have compared to this year's
meme-stock frenzy, when individual investors piled into stocks
such as GameStop  GME.N , spurring bouts of intense volatility.
 urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL1N2RM2GY
    "It looks like ... the market is fine with speculating: What
are they going to do with that billion dollars of cash? Who are
they going to buy? Who could they acquire?" said Thomas Hayes,
managing member, Great Hill Capital LLC, New York.
    "And the market seems to like that in the short term."
    Both Digital World and CF Acquisition were among the top
trending stocks on investor-focused social media site
Stocktwits.com, highlighting retail interest in the companies.
    "There's never any fundamental analysis that you can apply
to these types of stocks, which are often driven by essentially
chatroom related movements," said Rick Meckler, partner at
Cherry Lane Investments in New Vernon, New Jersey.
    Trump Media & Technology Group Corp said on Saturday it had
entered into agreements to raise about $1 billion through a
private investment in public equity (PIPE) transaction from "a
diverse group of institutional investors", as it prepares to
float in the U.S. stock market.  urn:newsml:reuters.com:*:nL1N2SP0DN

 (Reporting by Bansari Mayur Kamdar and Anisha Sircar in
Bengaluru; Editing by Saumyadeb Chakrabarty)
 ((BansariMayur.Kamdar@thomsonreuters.com;))