These 2 IPO Stocks Made Big Waves Monday

Investors were generally upbeat about the prospects for Wall Street on Monday. Even with ongoing pressure on the geopolitical and macroeconomic front, the sentiment of the market remained favorable. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI -0.11%) just barely managed to move higher, but the Nasdaq Composite (^IXIC 0.10%) and S&P 500 (^GSPC 0.02%) had more significant gains.

Data source: Yahoo! Finance.

Stocks that have recently gone public have taken some big hits in the market's downturn in recent months, but they've also been among the fastest to recover. Today, some big gains for Lilium (LILM -4.07%) and BRC (BRCC -2.58%) stood out, although both stocks gave back some ground in after-hours trading. Let's take a closer look at both IPO stocks to see why they made news on Monday.

Source: Lilium.

1. Lilium flies higher

Shares of Lilium finished the regular trading session up nearly 25%, and after-hours declines of 3% didn't give back much of those gains. The innovative jet maker reported key progress in its efforts to move ahead in the air-mobility race among small disruptive companies.

Lilium has been working on a jet aircraft that is powered completely by electricity and has vertical takeoff and landing capabilities. The company was able to begin its next phase of flight testing at the Atlas Flight Test Center in Spain as it works with its fifth-generation technology demonstrator aircraft, known as Phoenix 2. The prototype has already achieved some successes from previous testing in southern Germany, but Lilium hopes to extend its flight envelope to include full transitions from takeoff and landing configurations to high-speed flight.

In addition, Lilium expects to start flying a new aircraft, Phoenix 3, later this summer. With more capacity for test flights, Lilium hopes that it will be able to learn more in its flight test program while taking fewer risks.

Lilium came public through a SPAC merger last September, and even after today's gains, the stock has lost half its value since then. Nevertheless, shareholders are now hopeful that Lilium could hold its own in an increasingly competitive environment.

2. Perking up

Elsewhere, shares of BRC jumped 29% in the regular session. They then gave up about 10% in after-hours trading.

BRC is the company behind Black Rifle Coffee, which came public through a SPAC merger in February. Its initial quarterly financial report in March was favorable, with the company seeing revenue rise 42% and expecting 2022 sales to pick up another 35%. The coffee company stands out with its mission to serve veterans, active military personnel, and first responders, and it has worked hard to get ready-to-drink products into distribution channels nationwide.

The reason for the after-hours drop was that, given the share price's earlier gains, BRC announced that it would redeem all of its outstanding warrants in early May. Warrant holders will be able to receive a fixed fractional share per warrant based on where the stock trades during a certain 10-day period or exercise them to receive stock in exchange for $11.50 per share in cash.

BRC has been a successful SPAC IPO so far, but the company is in a highly competitive space. Shareholders are optimistic, though, that its mission can help give it a lasting advantage over its larger rivals.