If
you
are
not
familiar
with
Newsmax,
the
gist
is
that
it
is
a
cable
television
network
for
people
who
think
Fox
News
is
too
liberal.
On
Monday,
Newsmax
had
its
initial
public
offering.
Because
we
live
in
hell,
the
share
price
soared
by
more
than
1,500%
in
its
first
two
days
of
trading.
From
its
opening
at
$14
per
share,
by
market
close
on
Tuesday
intrepid
investors
were
shelling
out
$233
for
a
single
share
of
Newsmax
stock.
This
brought
Newsmax’s
market
capitalization
close
to
$30
billion.
In
comparison,
Fox
Corp.’s
current
market
cap
is
around
$24.75
billion,
despite
having
far
more
viewers
than
Newsmax
(among
other
cable
news
channels,
MSNBC
and
CNN
also
have
Newsmax
beat
when
it
comes
to
viewership).
It’s
not
even
close
either.
According
to
Nielsen
data,
Newsmax
averaged
309,000
prime-time
viewers
and
211,000
daytime
viewers
from
December
30
to
March
20,
while
Fox
News
averaged
about
3.1
million
and
2
million
viewers,
respectively,
over
the
same
period.
In
case
you
were
in
danger
of
having
this
IPO
make
any
sense
at
all,
you
should
also
keep
in
mind
that
Newsmax
is
a
money-losing
company
facing
several
big
lawsuits
over
the
lies
it
tells
on
air.
Though
revenue
was
up
compared
to
a
year
prior,
the
company
lost
$72
million
over
the
course
of
2024,
and
it
is
facing
a
$1.6
billion
lawsuit
from
Dominion
Voting
Systems
for
false
claims
made
about
the
2020
election.
Newsmax
also
previously
settled
a
lawsuit
brought
by
election
tech
company
Smartmatic
for
$40
million,
$20
million
of
which
it
has
paid
so
far.
The
Dominion
Voting
Systems
case
is
scheduled
for
trial
later
this
month.
Dominion
received
$787.5
million
from
Fox
in
a
similar
case.
The
concept
of
a
dramatically
overvalued
meme
stock
is
nothing
new.
Yet,
its
latest
iteration
has
taken
on
a
markedly
different
flavor
compared
to
the
early
2021
GameStop
short
squeeze.
At
least
many
of
the
retail
investors
hyping
GameStop’s
security
on
social
media
claimed
to
have
a
noble
purpose:
holding
long
enough
to
blow
up
the
positions
of
Wall
Street
short
sellers
who’d
been
pushing
around
the
average
Joe
for
long
enough.
With
Newsmax,
it’s
become
baldly
cynical:
get
in,
get
out
at
just
the
right
time
so
as
to
leave
the
guy
behind
you
holding
the
bag.
There
were
not
a
ton
of
big
short
positions
as
Newsmax
stock
started
trading
(although
there
surely
are
some
now
that
the
share
price
took
off
like
it
did).
Additionally,
any
investor
would
look
at
an
IPO
much
differently
than
they’d
view
a
flagging
legacy
company
like
GameStop.
No,
Newsmax
is
not
the
next
GameStop:
it’s
the
next
Trump
Media
&
Technology
Group.
Trump
Media,
owner
of
the
president’s
boring
social
media
platform
Truth
Social,
went
public
last
March.
Like
Newsmax,
the
only
things
Trump
Media
seems
to
do
really
well
are
promote
lies
and
lose
tremendous
amounts
of
money.
That
didn’t
stop
Trump
Media
shares
from
initially
surging,
albeit
at
a
much
more
modest
pace
than
those
of
Newsmax.
Publicly
available
Trump
Media
shares
peaked
two
days
after
their
debut
at
$61.96
on
March
28,
2024.
They
never
reached
those
heights
again.
At
market
close
on
April
1,
2025,
a
single
Trump
Media
share
cost
just
$20.26.
Sure,
Trump
inspires
an
irrational
fervor
in
some
of
his
most
ardent
supporters,
and
a
portion
of
the
initial
surges
in
both
Trump
Media
stock
and
Newsmax
stock
can
be
attributed
to
that.
Mostly,
though,
the
Main
Street
traders
piling
into
right-wing
meme
stocks
know
exactly
what
they’re
doing.
These
people
don’t
really
think
that
Newsmax
is
worth
more
than
Fox
News
with
one-tenth
the
viewership.
They
do
realize,
though,
that
meme
stocks
can
generate
a
substantial
amount
of
wealth
for
those
who
get
the
timing
right
—
at
the
expense,
of
course,
of
those
who
don’t.
For
there
to
be
a
few
big
winners
on
a
meme
stock,
there
have
to
be
a
lot
of
small
losers.
If
you
are
a
hardcore
right-wing
news
junkie
who
bought
into
the
Newsmax
IPO
believing
that
the
share
price
really
should
be
something
like
$233,
I
would
recommend
that
you
think
over
which
of
these
two
groups
you
are
in.
Don’t
take
too
long
though.
Jonathan
Wolf
is
a
civil
litigator
and
author
of Your
Debt-Free
JD
(affiliate
link).
He
has
taught
legal
writing,
written
for
a
wide
variety
of
publications,
and
made
it
both
his
business
and
his
pleasure
to
be
financially
and
scientifically
literate.
Any
views
he
expresses
are
probably
pure
gold,
but
are
nonetheless
solely
his
own
and
should
not
be
attributed
to
any
organization
with
which
he
is
affiliated.
He
wouldn’t
want
to
share
the
credit
anyway.
He
can
be
reached
at [email protected].