Back in the early days of me working for Tribune-Review Publishing, owned by billionaire Richard Scaife, he hired freelancer Christopher Ruddy basically to write about the Clintons and their questionable deeds.
These days, Ruddy is worth, on paper, over $3 billion, more than Scaife’s wealth at its highest. No, this is not an April Fools story.
The explanation is, in a word, Newsmax.
Ruddy founded Newsmax as a conservative news site in 1998, in partnership with Scaife. Earlier this week, Newsmax stock started trading publicly on an initial public offering at $10 a share.
As I type this at 3 p.m. Tuesday, Newsmax (ticker symbol NMAX) is trading at about $214 a share and has been as high as $229 earlier today.
The sound you hear is me kicking myself in the butt – repeatedly. Here’s why.
First, I started watching Newsmax and Real America’s Voice cable news channels in the lead up to the 2024 elections because I discovered each offered some great insight, better than usual conservative staple Fox.
They also covered Trump events like blankets and had featured contributors who since have become household names, such as Charlie Kirk.
Ruddy would appear periodically on Newsmax shows touting plans to sell stock in the company. He was looking to share the wealth, so to speak, with the viewership.
I made a mental note, yet never really followed up on it. The whole concept seemed attractive, but I was more into waiting for the explosion in silver prices that had been promised, any day now, since 2011.
The Newsmax initial public offering had slipped my mind until Monday, when it debuted in meteoric fashion, rocketing into the mid-$80s a share.
Behold, the first figurative kicking of my butt. If I’d just bought, say, 100 shares at $10, I’d have made $7,500 or so in one day. For me, that’s notable coin,
But I hadn’t bought, so I chalked it up to opportunity lost.
My wife, not exactly a seasoned investor, told me I should buy more because it would keep going upward.
I patiently explained to her that this is called the greater fool theory in investing – or more correctly, speculation. You buy highly priced stocks or investments anticipating an even bigger fool will pay more due to fear of missing out and the like. It ends badly for those late to the party.
Call this the second figurative kicking of my butt.
Newsmax is up more today, so far, than it was yesterday. Again, I left a lot of potential profit on the table.
Will I buy now?
Of course not.
Will Newsmax race to the moon again when markets open Wednesday? Since I’m not on board, of course it will.
Sam Ross Jr's site 