DJT stock jumps as Trump becomes $200 million richer on Election Day

On By Littum

Upper line

The publicly traded social media company, which is largely owned by former President Donald Trump, staged a small rally on Tuesday in a rocky final trading session before the polls closed.

Key facts

Shares of Trump Media & Technology Group, which trades under the ticker $DJT in reference to Trump’s initials, rose as much as 18.6% to $40.74 by early afternoon, adding more than $600 million to Trump’s net worth at the time .

But the stock suffered a steep drop in late afternoon trading, turning negative and briefly gaining ground stopped before recovering to a 5% gain to around $36 per share, which equates to a paper gain of about $210 million for Trump.

Trump’s social media nest egg now accounts for $4.1 billion of his $6.2 billion net worth, making him the 531st richest person in the world, according to Forbes estimates.

The stock of the Truth Social parent on social media is up about 95% over the last month.

Key background

Trump owns 57.3% of his namesake company, which began trading as an independent company in March following the completion of a year-long reverse merger with Digital World Acquisition Corp., a blank check company. Experts pretty much consider Trump Media a meme stock, meaning its share price can fluctuate wildly, with movements often not a reflection of the company’s underlying financial performance like other stocks. The firm’s sales are a fraction of its social media peers, with Trump Media’s $1.6 million in revenue during the first six months of 2024 far short of Snap’s $2.4 billion and Reddit’s $520 million in the period. Although Trump Media’s $8 billion market cap is less than half of Reddit and Snap’s respective $20 billion valuations, the Truth Social parent trades at an exponentially higher premium than its competitors based on revenue, with its 3,996 price-to-sales -ratio that dwarfs Reddit’s 20 P/S ratio and Snap’s 4 P/S ratio, a metric that compares a company’s market capitalization to its revenue over its past four quarters.

Key

Trump Media’s stock price has moved closely in line with the betting market’s odds on a Trump victory, a rally seen as a vote of confidence that Trump will win the election. The stock was trading at $16.50 a share a month ago when Trump’s odds on betting platform Polymarket were at 49%, and more than doubled as his bets rose to over 60%.

Further reading

ForbesHere’s how much Donald Trump is worthBy Dan Alexander
ForbesHow Donald Trump Made Billions From PoliticsBy Dan Alexander