Trump Media shares swing a day after former president was convicted | AP News
By: MICHELLE CHAPMAN (AP News)
Former President Donald Trump returns to the courthouse moments before hearing that the jury had a verdict in his criminal trial at Manhattan Criminal Court, Thursday, May 30, 2024, in New York. (Justin Lane/Pool Photo via AP)
By MICHELLE CHAPMAN Share Share
Shares of Trump Media & Technology Group swung wildly at the opening bell Friday, falling rapidly after it appeared that the owner of social networking site Truth Social, would bounce back despite the conviction of the former President Donald Trump in his hush money trial.
A New York jury found Trump guilty of falsifying business records in a scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election through hush money payments to a porn actor who said the two had sex.
After rising more than 2% at the opening of trade Friday shares slid 7%, about the levels they were trading immediately after the conviction was announced on off-hours trading Thursday evening.
The stock, which trades under the ticker symbol "DJT," has been extraordinarily volatile since its debut in late March, joining the group of meme stocks that are prone to ricochet from highs to lows as small-pocketed investors attempt to catch an upward momentum swing at the right time.
The stock has tripled this year, in the process frequently making double-digit percentage moves either higher or lower on a single day. It peaked at nearly $80 in intraday trading on March 26. For context, the S&P 500 is up almost 10% year to date.
In a filing with the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission before going public, Trump Media warned investors of the potential pitfalls faced by the former president and the adverse affect it might have on the stock.
"President Donald J. Trump is the subject of numerous legal proceedings, the scope and scale of which are unprecedented for a former President of the United States and current candidate for that office. An adverse outcome in one or more of the ongoing legal proceedings in which President Donald J. Trump is involved could negatively impact TMTG and its Truth Social platform."
Earlier this month, Trump Media reported that it lost more than $300 million last quarter, according to its first earnings report as a publicly traded company.
For the three-month period that ended March 31, the company posted a loss of $327.6 million, which it said included $311 million in non-cash expenses related to its merger with a company called Digital World Acquisition Corp. DWAC was an example of what's known as a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, which can give young companies quicker and easier routes to getting their shares trading publicly, but with much less scrutiny.
Trump Media & Technology fired an auditor this month that federal regulators recently charged with "massive fraud." The media company dismissed BF Borgers as its independent public accounting firm on May 3, delaying the filing of its quarterly earnings report.
Trump Media had previously cycled through at least two other auditors — one that resigned in July 2023, and another that was terminated by its board in March, just as it was rehiring BF Borgers.
Trump was charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records at his company in connection with an alleged scheme to hide potentially embarrassing stories about him during his 2016 Republican presidential election campaign.
The charge, a felony, arose from reimbursements paid to then-Trump lawyer Michael Cohen after he made a $130,000 hush money payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels to silence her claims of an extramarital sexual encounter with Trump in 2006. Trump was accused of misrepresenting Cohen's reimbursements as legal expenses to hide that they were tied to a hush money payment.
Trump's defense contended that the Cohen payments were for legitimate legal services.
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just another trump grift...
From the best businessman, who hires the best people.
maga has morphed into a criminal enterprise. hopefully the most gullible of his supporters have invested the entirety of their assets into it and will be the sole victims of it's inevitable financial collapse ...
I wonder if the same "financial geniuses who are predicting this are the same ones that said Twitter would be gone in a year?
it isn't called twitter anymore, is it? ... derp.
Ya get what ya pay for
there's going to be a lot of maga suckers left holding the bag at the end... bummer.
He's surrounded by scum - not a swamp - a cesspool
Bought by scumbag mushroom sucker Musk.
he got some of that premium aryan-only stock issue...
And the MAGAs have sent in $34 million in the day after the verdict.
For a supposed billionaire and world's best businessman, the grift keeps working and some of those ''donations'' are coming from the very wealthy they are well aware that Trump can be bought.
It seems to me that many of them have forgotten that being rich (as he claims) supposedly meant that Trump could campaign without financial support, and was therefore above being bought. Wasn't that supposed to be one of his selling points? What the hell happened to that?
he knows his gullible supporters have the memory span of a fruit fly...
I think many of them have selective memories. They know he said it, so they believe whatever makes them feel comfortable reconciling his words with the reality that he's got his tin cup out again.
it makes them feel good to give money to trump the same way it makes them feel good to give money to tv evangelists
I'll never understand either. Giving money to people who have way more of it than I do, or ever will, just because they tell me they (or God) need it. It makes no sense to me at all.
suckers. like the J6 perps sitting in jail now when trump had 2 full weeks left as POTUS to pardon them... LOL...
Ooops, that fell somewhere on his to-do list below jailing Hillary and introducing his beautiful new healthcare plan. It's hard to tick things off the list when you're on the golf course as much as Trump was.
after he claimed on the 2016 campaign trail he wouldn't have time to play golf...
I see you choose to remember what many choose to forget.
it's all part and parcel of being an obnoxious and sarcastic smart ass...
[✘]
... of which my fan club can attest.
[✘]
I remember all those "lock her up" chants that started in 2016 too. karma...
[✘]
I remember the same people cheering then who are squealing about "witch hunts" and "lawfare" now.
the GOP has turned into a warped jr high pep rally...
And many of them seem to relish that. No dignity at all.
the growing legacy of their failures at leadership, individual freedom, and patriotism is the death rattle of the GOP.
amf = adios maga fuckers...
That never really existed
One of the scum that just got out of jail for being in the Capitol on 1/6 - was in the 'audience' of the 'trial' gqp freakshow circus of Dr. Fauci
I'd never consider you obnoxious. Honest yes. Some of your fans, most definitely. You ARE my favorite sarcastic smart ass though.
Hey! That's MY internet boyfriend!
LOL
How do we resolve this? Mud wrestling or jello?
He was the real mature person behind Dr. Fauci making faces
I like pudding
You must have read my mind - I was thinking chocolate pudding right after I posted.
Chocolate's good. How do you feel about butterscotch?
a restaurant I once worked at would take chocolate pudding, add some instant sanka, whip it, and call it chocolate mousse ...
why would any trumpsters memories be any better than trump's?
that one was easy to remember because he spent ALL of his time playing golf
eric trump claimed they raised $200 million in the first 48 hours. I heard it on rwnj radio, so it must be true...
Eric Trump would have to use a calculator to add anything up to five.
his main function in life is to be trump's organ donor...
OMG!
... except for his brain, of course.