Trump Media & Technology Group shares fluctuated wildly after the opening bell Friday, plunging sharply when it looked like the owner of social networking site Truth Social would recover despite former President Donald Trump’s conviction in his hush money trial.
A New York jury convicted Trump guilty of falsifying company records in a conspiracy to illegally influence the 2016 election by paying hush money to a porn performer who claimed the two had sex.
After climbing more than 2% at the start of trading Friday, shares fell 7%, returning to levels seen shortly after the conviction was announced in off-hours trading Thursday evening.
The company, which trades under the ticker symbol “DJT,” has been extremely volatile since its introduction in late March. It joins the ranks of meme stocks that ricochet from highs to lows as small-pocketed investors try to catch an upward momentum swing at the appropriate time.
Trump Media Shares Swing Wildly And Then Tumble A Day After Former President Was Convicted
The stock has tripled this year, with daily double-digit percentage changes either higher or down. On March 26, it peaked at nearly $80 in intraday trading. The S&P 500 is up about 10% year to date.
Before going public, Trump Media warned investors about the possible problems that the former president might have and the negative impact they could have on the company.
“President Donald J. Trump is the subject of several legal procedures, the scope and magnitude of which are unusual for a former President of the United States and current candidate for the position. A poor decision in one or more ongoing judicial processes involving President Donald J. Trump might harm TMTG and its Truth Social platform.
For the three months ended March 31, the firm reported a $327.6 million loss, which includes $311 million in non-cash expenses due to its merger with Digital World Acquisition Corp. DWAC was an example of a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, which can provide emerging companies with a faster and easier path to publicly trading their shares while requiring far less scrutiny.
Trump Media Shares Swing Wildly And Then Tumble A Day After Former President Was Convicted
This month, Trump Media & Technology fired an auditor after federal regulators charged him with “massive fraud.” On May 3, the media corporation fired BF Borgers as its independent public accounting firm, which delayed the publication of its quarterly results report.
Trump Media had previously gone through at least two other auditors, one of whom resigned in July 2023 and another fired by the company’s board in March, just as BF Borgers was being hired again.
Trump was charged with 34 counts of fabricating business documents at his corporation as part of an alleged plot to conceal potentially damaging stories about himself during the 2016 Republican presidential election campaign.
Trump Media Shares Swing Wildly And Then Tumble A Day After Former President Was Convicted
The felony accusation stems from reimbursements paid to then-Trump lawyer Michael Cohen after he made a $130,000 hush money payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels to conceal her claims of an illicit sexual encounter with Trump in 2006. Trump was accused of disguising Cohen’s reimbursements as legal fees to conceal the fact that they were part of a hush money payment.
Trump’s defense argued that Cohen’s payments were for genuine legal services.
SOURCE – (AP)
