The parent company of right-of-center cable news channel Newsmax had its Wall Street debut on Monday, and its share price definitely put on a show for investors and retail traders alike.
Newsmax initially priced its stock at $10 per share, but opened at $14 per share on Monday, then rose by over 600 percent in volatile trading by the middle of the day. As of 1:30 p.m. Eastern Time, shares of Newsmax were trading around $65, representing a 551 percent premium over its initial price, according to Yahoo Finance.
Christopher Ruddy, the CEO of Newsmax, told financial news outlet CNBC that he felt the time was right for Fox Corporation to have a “center-right” competitor on the stock market.
“I think there was a demand for more competition against Fox,” Ruddy said. Fox Corporation owns various properties, including Fox News Media, streaming platform Tubi, Fox Sports and the flagship Fox network, the latter of which has aired edgy, progressive programming relative to its competitors throughout much of its history.
Newsmax typically ranks fourth across cable news, with Fox News, CNN and MSNBC leading it in the Nielsen ratings. NewsNation, an upstart cable news channel owned by Nexstar Media Group, occasionally trades with Newsmax for the fourth-place ranking. Newsmax has quickly grown in the ratings since the company decided to wind down its free streaming channel and go all-in on cable and satellite distribution two years ago; NewsNation’s audience has grown quicker than Newsmax in the months since the 2024 presidential election, according to an evaluation of Nielsen ratings by The Desk.
Still, Newsmax carries influence with the conservative politicians who appear on its network, and Wall Street appears to be banking on the idea that the channel will experience some good business throughout the tenure of President Donald Trump, who occasionally calls in to Newsmax shows.
Newsmax’s stock lift influenced similar trends on Wall Street Monday: Fox Corporation’s stock increased 2 percent, while shares of Nexstar traded over 1 percent higher. Shares of Warner Bros Discovery, which owns CNN, also traded 2 percent higher.
