What happened
Shares of the blank-check company CF Acquisition Corp VI (CFVI) are extremely volatile today, at one point jumping more than 30%. As of 11:36 a.m. ET, however, shares of CF Acquisition were about 4% higher.
The moves are linked to CF Acquisition's plans to merge with and take public the social media platform Rumble, which is believed to be linked to former President Donald Trump.
So what
The deal values Rumble at an enterprise value of $2.1 billion. Rumble, which is a video platform with fewer restrictions than traditional publishing platforms like YouTube, has grown more popular among certain publishers worried about being banned from traditional platforms.
Rumble already claims to have 36 million average active monthly users, with viewers watching 8 billion minutes of content on the platform per month.
Image source: Getty Images.
But the real driver of the move in CF Acquisition's stock price is Rumble's link to Trump. The former president is not only a member of Rumble, which seems to have grown popular with conservatives, but Rumble also said its partner is Truth Social, which is considered Trump's new social media platform.
Another SPAC, called Digital World Acquisition (DWAC), plans to take Truth Social public. Digital World popped more than 900% on the announcement regarding Truth Social and the link to Trump, although it has since come down considerably and currently trades around $43, which is still a huge gain from its $10 opening price.
Now what
It's clear that any kind of social media platform linked to Trump has gotten the attention of investors because of the wide audience the former president can captivate. But these SPACs are also risky and trade with huge volatility.
Recently, federal regulators announced they are investigating Digital World Acquisition regarding how the SPAC and Truth Social communicated before the unveiling of the deal.
CF Acquisition is trading at a much more reasonable price than Digital World, and there may indeed be big potential behind these new social platforms, but be prepared for lots of volatility.
