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Further reading from Invested Early:
Hello.
A blank-check company that spent most of the year pinned at $10 closed Thursday at $23.43 after shareholders approved its merger with Evernorth, a Ripple-backed firm that will list on Nasdaq next week holding about 473 million XRP. Foghorn Therapeutics lost 18% after Eli Lilly walked away from their lead cancer program, and Veritone fell 37% after agreeing to sell 20 million shares at $0.75, a day after closing at $1.19.
The broad market barely moved. The Russell 2000 ETF added 0.4% on Thursday and the S&P 500 ETF gained 0.2%, which left the day's real action in names under $1 billion.
Here's what's inside today:
🧾 Four numbers to check before buying a SPAC after the vote
💠 The $23 SPAC that just became the largest public XRP treasury
🩳 The 15 stocks short sellers are piling into right now
📈 Top gainers (and biggest losers) from Thursday's session
This is not financial advice. Always do your own research. Past performance doesn't guarantee future results.
Four Numbers to Check Before Buying a SPAC After the Vote
A SPAC is a pile of cash in a trust, usually about $10 a share, waiting to buy a private company. Until the vote, the stock mostly sits near trust value because anyone who dislikes the deal can redeem for their $10 back. The vote is where the pile of cash becomes a business, and it is also where the share count and the price can come apart. Thursday's Armada II move is the live example, and the 8-K it filed Thursday morning shows what to look for.
Trust value per share. This is the floor before the vote and nothing after it. A SPAC trading at $23 with $10 in trust is pricing in $13 a share of belief about the target. That can be right, but it should be a conscious decision.
Redemptions. Most SPAC holders take their cash back at the vote. Armada's 8-K lists votes, not redemptions, so the real cash contribution won't be known until the closing filing. Less cash in trust means the target depends more on the PIPE investors.
The PIPE price. Private placement investors in a de-SPAC usually buy at $10. When the public shares trade well above that, the PIPE holders have a built-in gain the day their shares become sellable.
Share count at close. The SPAC's 31.6 million shares are not the company's share count. Evernorth will issue new stock for every XRP contributed and every dollar raised, and the number depends on XRP's price at closing. Until the post-close 8-K lands, the market cap you see on a quote page is the SPAC's, not the business's.
Lockups come after these four. Insiders and PIPE investors usually can't sell for 90 to 180 days, which is why the first unlock date matters more than the listing date.
The $23 SPAC That Just Became the Largest Public XRP Treasury
Armada Acquisition Corp. II closed Thursday at $23.43, up 42.9%, after shareholders approved its merger with Evernorth Holdings. The deal closes October 7 and the stock starts trading as XRPN on October 8.
The news: Evernorth's business is holding XRP. At closing it expects to own about 473 million tokens, built from:
About 338 million XRP contributed in kind by Ripple and the sponsor group
$225 million of private placements, most of it spent buying 84 million XRP at an average of $2.54
A $30 million convertible note and about $48 million of SPAC trust cash
Backers include Arrington Capital, SBI Group, Ripple, Pantera Capital, Kraken and GSR. The vote passed 20.5 million to 1.4 million.
Why it matters: This is the first pure-play XRP treasury of real size on a U.S. exchange, and its largest shareholders are the companies with the most to gain from a public vehicle that buys the token. The model is the one Bitcoin treasury companies used in 2024 and 2025: hold the coins, trade at a premium to them, and sell stock at that premium to buy more.
The honest risk: The stock already trades at a large premium to what it holds.
The stock spent most of the past year between $10.10 and $10.91, roughly trust value, and the private placement investors paid $10. At $23.43 the market is paying more than double that.
XRP traded near $1.49 after the vote, down from $2.36 when the deal was signed, and Standard Chartered cut its 2026 target to $2.80 from $8. At $1.49, the treasury is worth about $705 million.
The post-close share count isn't public yet, so nobody can say what one share represents until the closing filing lands. The $10 PIPE shares will eventually be sellable.
The real information arrives with the closing filing and the first unlock date, both of which come after October 8. Until then, a small position is the most this deserves.
The 15 Stocks Short Sellers Are Piling Into Right Now
Our partners at AltIndex run a short squeeze tracker that ranks the 15 stocks seeing the sharpest sudden spikes in shorting pressure. Instead of waiting for twice-monthly exchange short interest, it uses a short ratio (the share of daily volume that comes from short sales) and a short signal that compares the current level to the past seven days, then flags each name as Normal, Elevated, High or Extreme.
On Thursday the top of the list included Vertical Aerospace at a 75% short ratio with an Extreme signal and ACV Auctions at 63%. Each row also shows the stock's AI Score, so a heavily shorted name with strong hiring and web traffic signals stands out from one being shorted for good reason.
Shorting data works best as one input alongside the others. AltIndex is a partner; Invested Inc. may earn a commission on referrals.
🎢 The Small-Cap Scoreboard
Here's where Thursday's biggest moves landed. Crypto-adjacent names led the gainers, while two biotech setbacks and a deeply discounted share sale filled the losers side.
🟢 Yesterday’s biggest gainers
Symbol | Company | Price | Change | Market Cap | 52-Wk |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Armada Acquisition Corp. II | $23.43 | +42.9% | $740M | +124% | |
Stablecoin Development Corp. | $3.66 | +41.3% | $185M | -43% | |
Smartbird (formerly Allbirds) | $3.49 | +33.7% | $41M | -41% | |
Quantum-Si | $1.43 | +33.6% | $313M | +1% | |
Outset Medical | $3.75 | +25.0% | $70M | -75% |
🔴 Yesterday’s biggest losers
Symbol | Company | Price | Change | Market Cap | 52-Wk |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Veritone | $0.75 | -37.0% | $75M | -84% | |
Karyopharm Therapeutics | $0.87 | -29.0% | $20M | -86% | |
Nektar Therapeutics | $46.99 | -22.4% | $1.6B | -17% | |
Foghorn Therapeutics | $2.92 | -18.2% | $173M | -40% | |
Aclaris Therapeutics | $4.41 | -16.2% | $649M | +126% |
Armada II was the headline, above. Stablecoin Development, a staking company, rose with it on no announcement, and Quantum-Si extended the run that began with its Proteus protein-sequencing data on September 29. Smartbird and Outset Medical jumped on heavy volume with no news we could find.
On the loser side, Veritone agreed to sell 20 million shares at about $0.75, a 37% discount to Wednesday's close, to pay down convertible debt. Foghorn fell after Eli Lilly ended development of their partnered cancer drug on weak Phase 1 efficacy; the company is cutting 40% of its staff. Nektar dropped on alopecia durability data that analysts split on, Karyopharm hit a new low a month after its debt forbearance agreement, and Aclaris fell with Nektar on no news we could find. Corteva's 84% drop was its seed-business spin-off, so it stays off the table.
(Data: Yahoo Finance.)
🫡 See You Soon
Thursday brought a blank-check company that more than doubled on a vote to hold 473 million XRP, a biotech that lost its Lilly partnership and 40% of its staff in the same morning, and a software company that sold stock at a 37% discount to pay down debt. The SPAC story will get its real test on October 8, when the shares that were bought at $10 start trading next to the ones that were bought at $23.
We'll keep showing you both sides.
We'll be back soon. Watching a name we should cover? Hit reply and tell us.
Cheers,
— Brandon & Blake of Invested Inc.
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