Wednesday saw a near-record low for the price of shares in Donald Trump’s Trump Media – which houses the loss-making Truth Social platform and is a rival to Elon Musk’s X and Meta’s Threads. The shares ended at US$23.97, near the lowest since the company was backed into a cash shell back in March. The lowest price is US$22.55.
More importantly, the price is down 41% since its most recent high of US$40.58 on July 15 – the week that Joe Biden dropped out of the poll and was replaced days later by Kamala Harris, the Vice President. The value of around US$4.7 billion at Wednesday’s close is down from more than US$9 billion at its peak.
Trump Media shares have come under growing pressure in recent days following its weak June quarterly results last week and Trump’s return to Musk’s social media platform X. Trump is the majority owner of Trump Media & Technology and Truth Social is the company’s main asset.
Investors think that by going on X for the much-derided interview with Musk on Monday night, Trump has undermined the value of Truth Social and Trump Media shares. Reuters also reported that “Trump’s dwindling lead in polls and election betting markets in recent weeks has also hit the stock, which is seen by some retail traders as a bet on whether Trump will win a second term.”
And punts on the stock by big fund managers like BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street because of the shares’ inclusion in two indexes that track small companies have gone bad with the fall since mid-July. Vanguard bought 2.9 million shares, BlackRock 2.2 million, and State Street bought around 440,000. These positions were published on Wednesday in regulatory filings known as 13Fs (a filing with the SEC), which show what fund managers own at the end of every quarter.
