By Trump Media stock shot up Wednesday, as the company majority owned by Donald Trump looked to claw back losses from a punishing sell-off that picked up steam after insiders’ lockups expired.
DJT shares rose more than 10% to close at $14.13. Trump Media had closed more than 5% higher Tuesday, snapping a six-day losing streak.
The positive turn for the Truth Social owner follows a monthslong stock slump that erased billions of dollars from the company’s market capitalization.
Trump Media shares at Monday’s close were at their lowest in the roughly six months since the company went public after merging with a blank-check firm.
Some experts still see Trump Media, which currently boasts a market cap of more than $2.5 billion, as highly overvalued.
They suggest that retail investors are trading the stock not based on its business fundamentals — it reported just $837,000 in revenue for the latest fiscal quarter — but as a way to bet on the Republican presidential nominee’s political fortunes.
Trump Media briefly surged in mid-July, after Trump narrowly survived an assassination attempt at a campaign rally and appeared to be extending his lead over President Joe Biden. But the stock started to tumble soon after, around the time Vice President Kamala Harris replaced Biden and quickly shrank Trump’s lead in the polls.
Between July 15 and Monday, Trump Media’s stock dropped 70%.
Trump Media continued to slide ahead of the expiration of lockup agreements that had barred Trump and other company insiders from selling their shares.
Those lockups expired Thursday afternoon. That kicked off a flurry of trading, with Trump Media shares being swapped at a significantly higher volume than the company’s 30-day average, according to FactSet.
Trump owns 114,750,000 shares, a nearly 57% stake worth about $1.5 billion as of Wednesday morning. If Trump moved to cash out from the company that bears his name, it could shake investors’ confidence and potentially spur another sell-off.
But days before his lockup lifted, Trump declared he had no plans to sell.
So far, no other Trump Media insiders have reported transactions to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which is required in most cases.
Trump Media has said in regulatory filings that its sole product, Truth Social, depends on the former president’s popularity and continued use of the social media platform.
