In this photo illustration a smartphone screen displays the logo of Donald Trump’s Truth Social app March 25 2024 in Bath, England.
Anna Barclay | Getty Images
The share price of Donad Trump’s social media company jumped by more than 50% minutes after it began public trading under the ticker DJT on Tuesday morning.
Trading in Trump Media & Technology Group was briefly halted amid the rise due to volatility before it resumed around 9:40 a.m. ET
The ticker debuted on the NASDAQ stock market nearly three decades after the former president used it to launch his publicly traded hotel and casino company to great fanfare in 1995.
That stock was ignominiously delisted from the New York Stock Exchange nine years later.
Trump Media’s merger with the shell company Digital World Acquisition Corp. was completed Monday, allowing it to become publicly traded, it added almost $4 billion in paper profits to Donald Trump’s net worth.
Trump Media’s market valuation could be $6 billion at Tuesday’s opening bell, despite the company reporting less than $3.5 million — that’s million, not billion — in revenue over the first three quarters of 2023.
On its last day of trading Monday under the DWAC ticker, the company’s shares soared more than 35% after a New York appeals court decreased from $454 million to $175 million the amount of a bond Trump would have to post to pause collection on a business fraud judgment while he appeals the case.
The company’s closing price Monday was just under $50 per share.
Trump’s notoriety helped make the Trump Media deal with DWAC the highest profile SPAC — special purpose acquisition company — merger ever.
The company’s shareholders may have dreams that its Truth Social app platform will significantly grow its market share enough for the firm to turn a profit. Perhaps its growth could even be turbocharged if Trump is elected president in November.
But for now, Trump Media, just like the previous company that traded under…
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