Lordstown Motors spikes 19% after SPAC merger kicks off public trading

• Lordstown Motors surged as much as 19% after shares began trading publicly on Monday.
• The company, which trades under the ticker RIDE, completed a reverse merger with a special-purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, last week and is set to receive $675 million in proceeds from the deal.
• Lordstown enjoyed time in the national spotlight when President Donald Trump featured its Endurance pickup on the White House lawn in September.
• Shares pared gains through the day and sat 7.8% higher as of 3:10 p.m. ET.
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Electric truck manufacturer Lordstown Motors rallied as much as 19% in its Monday trading debut before paring some gains.

Shares leaped as high as $21.75 before cutting gains roughly in half. The stock, which trades with the ticker RIDE, changed hands 7.8% higher at $19.63 as of 3:10 p.m. ET.

The company is the latest vehicle startup to enter the public market through a reverse merger with a special-purpose acquisition company, or SPAC. Lordstown combined with blank-check firm DiamondPeak Holdings Corp. last week. The merged entity joins Nikola and Hyliion Holdings in the expanding electric-vehicle-maker-turned-SPAC-target space, with Canoo and Fisker set to join in the near future.

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Lordstown is expected to raise $675 million through the SPAC takeover and use the funds for bringing its Endurance pickup truck to market. Production is slated to begin in the second half of 2021, with deliveries beginning in the summer. The company has said it has 40,000 preorders for the truck, which could bring in $2 billion in revenue.

Lordstown enjoyed time in the national spotlight last month when President Donald Trump highlighted the pickup model outside the White House. The president praised Lordstown for its purchasing of General Motors' old production facility and bringing jobs to northeast Ohio.

The company's public debut combines Wall Street's years-long obsession with electric vehicle companies with its more recent frenzy over SPAC deals. More than $59 billion has been raised across 160 SPAC deals in 2020 so far, according to SPACInsider.com. That handily exceeds the $13.6 billion raised across 59 mergers in all of 2019.

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