DJT Stock Rises on Higher Chances of Trump Winning the Election

Shares of the Donald Trump-linked social media company have more than doubled in the last three weeks. Investors in Trump Media & Technology Group, which runs social media network Truth Social, have thrown their weight behind the stock as online betting sites have increased their odds that Trump will win the 2024 US presidential election.

On Monday (October 14), TMTG’s stock price rose more than 19% to over $30 per share. This came after the stock closed at $12.15 per share on September 23 following the expiration of a six-month lock-up period during which TMTG insiders were not allowed to sell their shares. Trump said he had “absolutely no intention” of selling his stocks.

TMTG, which has posted net losses so far, has not released any significant financial news in the last three weeks that would have fueled its share price jump. Analysts say the rise in TMTG’s stock price instead reflects higher investor expectations that Trump will defeat Vice President Kamala Harris in next month’s election, improving the prospects for Truth Social, Trump’s preferred social platform.

As USA Today reported on Monday, Trump took the lead over Harris in the US presidential election betting odds for the first time since the September 10 debate. According to the report, Trump’s largest lead among gambling site USA Today’s regular polls is at BetOnline, where the line is at Trump -140, compared to Harris at +120. (U.S. bookmakers are not legally allowed to accept such bets, according to the report.)

“People are realizing that this stock has the potential to make a difference if Trump gets elected,” Matthew Tuttle, CEO of Tuttle Capital Management, told CNN, adding, “And if he doesn’t get elected, it probably goes up Zero.”

TMTG’s market cap is currently just over $6 billion and has more than doubled since the September 23 lows. The company’s market capitalization hit an intraday high of more than $9.5 billion on March 26, CNBC reported.

As of August 15, Trump owned 56.6% of TMTG’s outstanding shares, making his stake currently worth about $3.4 billion.

For the second quarter of 2024, TMTG reported net sales of $836,900 and a net loss of $16.37 million, according to its 10-Q SEC filing for the period. For the first quarter, the company reported revenue of $770,500 and a net loss of $327.6 million. Most of the loss in the first three months of the year was due to costs related to TMTG’s merger with special purpose acquisition company Digital World Acquisition Corp. to a listed company.

Following the Company’s merger with DWAC, TMTG shares began trading on Nasdaq on March 26, 2024 under the ticker symbol “DJT.”

TMTG calls Truth Social a “safe haven for free speech in the face of increasingly harsh censorship by Big Tech.” Trump founded TMTG in 2021 after the former president was banned from Twitter (now X), Facebook, Instagram, YouTube and other internet platforms for violating bans on incitement to violence in connection with the January 6, 2021 attack had at the US Capitol. Trump’s accounts have been reinstated from X, Meta’s Facebook and Instagram, YouTube and others, but Truth Social remains his preferred social media platform.

Truth Social launched in early 2022. “TMTG was founded to push back against the big tech companies – Meta (Facebook, Instagram and Threads), X (formerly Twitter), Netflix, Alphabet (Google), Amazon and others – that are driving the debate “in America and censor voices that contradict their “woke” ideology,” the company said in its prospectus.

TMTG has not disclosed how many people use Truth Social. “At this point in its development, TMTG believes that compliance with traditional key performance indicators such as signups, average revenue per user, ad impressions and pricing, or active user accounts, including monthly and daily active users, could potentially divert focus from strategic valuation in view the progress and growth of its business,” it said in an updated prospectus filed Sept. 5.