Shares of Trump Media & Technology Group, the owner of Truth Social, fell sharply on Thursday after former President Donald Trump was found guilty in his hush money trial.
A New York jury convicted Trump of falsifying business records to influence the 2016 election by paying hush money to a porn actor who claimed they had a sexual relationship.
Trump Media’s stock dropped about 9% in after-hours trading as the news of the verdict spread.
The stock, trading under the ticker symbol “DJT,” has been very unstable since its debut in late March.
It is considered a meme stock, which means its price can jump or fall dramatically as small investors try to profit from quick moves.
This year, the stock has tripled, often moving by double-digit percentages in a single day.
It reached nearly $80 in intraday trading on March 26. For comparison, the S&P 500 has risen almost 10% year to date.
Earlier this month, Trump Media reported a loss of over $300 million for the last quarter, according to its first earnings report as a publicly traded company.
For the three months ending March 31, the company posted a loss of $327.6 million, including $311 million in non-cash expenses related to its merger with Digital World Acquisition Corp. (DWAC).
DWAC is a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC), which allows young companies to go public quickly with less scrutiny.
Trump Media & Technology fired an auditor recently charged with “massive fraud” by federal regulators.
The company dismissed BF Borgers as its independent public accounting firm on May 3, delaying its quarterly earnings report.
Trump Media had previously gone through at least two other auditors — one resigned in July 2023, and another was terminated by its board in March, just as BF Borgers was rehired.
Trump was charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records related to hiding potentially embarrassing stories during his 2016 presidential campaign.
The felony charge arose from reimbursements paid to Trump’s then-lawyer Michael Cohen after Cohen made a $130,000 hush money payment to porn actor Stormy Daniels to silence her claims of a sexual encounter with Trump in 2006.
Trump was accused of misrepresenting Cohen’s reimbursements as legal expenses to conceal the hush money payment. Trump’s defense argued that the payments to Cohen were for legitimate legal services.
Very interesting subject, thank you for posting.Raise blog range