What Happened?
Shares of real estate technology company Redfin (NASDAQ:RDFN) jumped 87.8% in the pre-market session after the company announced it agreed to be acquired by Rocket Companies in an all-stock transaction for $12.50 per Redfin share, or $1.75 billion. Under the terms of the deal, each share of Redfin common stock would be exchanged for a fixed ratio of 0.7926 shares of Rocket Companies common stock. The acquisition price was 63% higher than Redfin's 30-day average price as of March 7, 2025, the last trading day before the news.
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What The Market Is Telling Us
Redfin’s shares are extremely volatile and have had 67 moves greater than 5% over the last year. But moves this big are rare even for Redfin and indicate this news significantly impacted the market’s perception of the business.
The biggest move we wrote about over the last year was 4 months ago when the stock dropped 27.6% on the news that the company reported weak third-quarter earnings which fell short of Wall Street's expectations. The number of brokerage transactions missed and EBITDA fell short of Wall Street's estimates. The challenging operating environment, characterized by fluctuating mortgage rates and aggressive competitor ad spending, further weakened the performance. As a result, EBITDA guidance came in below expectations, throwing some cold water on the solid revenue guide. Overall, this was a weaker quarter.
Redfin is up 22.3% since the beginning of the year, but at $9.52 per share, it is still trading 34.1% below its 52-week high of $14.45 from September 2024. Investors who bought $1,000 worth of Redfin’s shares 5 years ago would now be looking at an investment worth $401.43.
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