Newsmax is now worth more than media giants like The New York Times and News Corp. after the conservative news outlet saw its share price nearly triple on Tuesday, a day after the company’s big debut on Wall Street.
Shares of Newsmax jumped 179% on Tuesday, closing the day at $233 per share. That comes just one day after Newsmax first started trading on the New York Stock Exchange under the NMAX symbol.
The back-to-back days of remarkable gains pushed Newsmax’s market cap to nearly $21 billion — making the outlet more valuable than both The New York Times, which is valued at $8.2 billion, and News Corp., which has a market cap of $15.9 billion.
Newsmax, just two days into being a publicly traded company, is now suddenly one of the top 10 most valuable media companies in the world. Its valuation is on par with BCE, the parent company of Bell Media, and within striking distance of Warner Bros. Discovery and Fox Corp., which are both worth about $25 billion.
Shares of Newsmax started trading for $14 per share on Monday morning — above its $10 IPO price — and quickly grew from there. The outlet’s stock was halted six times in the first three hours of trading, as excited investors looked to grab shares of the Trump-friendly outlet. That momentum continued on Tuesday, clearly, with shares opening at about $126 and racing up to $265 per share at one point during the day.
Newsmax is home to former Fox News host Greta Van Susteren, who hosts her show weekdays at 6 p.m. ET, as well as anchors Rob Schmitt and Rob Finnerty; Schmitt’s weeknight show averaged 520,000 viewers in February, making it Newsmax’s top-rated show for the month. He recently interviewed Elon Musk at CPAC.
The media company, beyond its Newsmax channel, also runs its Newsmax.com website, has a free streaming channel called Newsmax2 and also offers a subscription service, Newsmax+, for $4.99 per month. Newsmax was founded by CEO Christopher Ruddy in 1998 and is based in Boca Raton, Fla. On its social platforms, Newsmax says it has about 20 million followers.
Its sales jumped 26% to $171 million last year, although Newsmax still lost $72 million in 2024.
Newsmax was looking to raise $75 million by selling 7.5 million Class B shares, Seeking Alpha reported; investors had to buy at least $500 worth of shares to meet its minimum requirement. Ruddy retains more than 80% of voting power following the IPO due to the dual-class share structure.
It will be interesting to see whether Newsmax can continue climbing the ranks of the most-valuable media companies on Wednesday.
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