Digital World Acquisition Corp. (DWAC) and Cantor Fitzgerald Acquisition VI (CFVI) have both experienced a surge in interest from retail investors in recent months due to their proposed mergers with Trump Media and Rumble. Both stocks are SPACs – special purpose acquisition companies. These blank-check vehicles raise money through an IPO, and then aim to acquire or merge with another company. The SPAC market raised $96 billion in the first quarter of 2021 alone, according to the Harvard Business Review.
Until a merger is complete, SPACs have no underlying value. Even if the deals happen, the business case for a new conservative media outlet remains low, according to Jim Osman, who founded the specialist research firm the Edge Consulting Group. “Is there room for another social-media platform? I don’t think there is,” he told Insider in November. “Parler tried to appeal to a conservative audience, and that pretty much got wiped out.”
Insider asked three investing experts for their views on DWAC and CFVI. All three compared the two SPACs with last year’s “meme stock” trading frenzy, when retail investors pumped up the price of previously unloved companies like GameStop and AMC. The three investors also warned that, as with meme stocks, there’s a strong chance that some retail investors get burned by these SPACs.