Trump Media stock ticker DJT debuts after DWAC merger

The stock price of Donald Trump’s social media company jumped more than 50% within minutes of its IPO under the ticker DJT on Tuesday morning.

Trump Media & Technology Group trading was briefly halted amid the volatility-driven surge before resuming around 9:40 a.m. ET. More than 6.5 million shares of Trump Media had changed hands as of 9:50 a.m.

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 with great fanfare in 1995.

That stock was ignominiously delisted from the New York Stock Exchange nine years later.

The symbol “pays direct homage to the company’s former chairman and CEO, as well as the 45^th President of the United States, Donald J. Trump,” Trump Media said in a statement.

“We believe the start of DJT trading in the public markets speaks to Americans’ demands for free speech platforms that reject the stifling censorship imposed by Big Tech,” the statement said.

Trump Media’s merger with shell company Digital World Acquisition Corp. was finalized on Monday, allowing it to be listed on the stock exchange.

As of mid-afternoon, Trump Media had a market valuation of at least $8.4 billion based on undiluted shares.

Trump is the majority shareholder of the company, whose directors include his son, Donald Trump Jr., and other close allies of the former president.

SEC filings show that Trump will own 78.75 million shares in Trump Media, representing up to 69% of the company’s equity based on the rate of share buybacks by DWAC shareholders. That stake was worth nearly $6 billion on paper based on undiluted shares, given the stock’s price of $75.57 around 2:30 p.m.

Under the terms of the merger, Trump cannot sell his shares for six months. But the company’s board of directors could grant it an exemption from this retention period.

Despite Trump Media’s relatively high stock valuation, the company reported less than $3.5 million — that’s millions, not billions — in revenue during the first three quarters of 2023, with losses reported more than 10 times this amount.

The “Finances” page of the company website does not contain any information.

On its last day of trading Monday under the symbol DWAC, the company’s shares soared more than 35% after a New York appeals court reduced the amount from $454 million to $175 million. of the bail that Trump would have to post to suspend the recovery of commercial 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 special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, merger ever.

The company’s shareholders can dream that its Truth Social application platform will significantly increase its market share, enough for the company to turn a profit. Perhaps its growth could even be boosted if Trump is elected president in November.

But for now, Trump Media, just like the previous company that traded under the ticker DJT, is a money loser.

Trump Media reported $49 million in losses for the first nine months of 2023, more than 14 times its revenue.

When Trump Hotels and Casino Resorts went public at $14 per share in 1995 under the symbol DJT, that also made headlines.

This made money for Trump personally for years.

Trump received more than $44 million in salary from the company over a decade, even though the company repeatedly failed to turn a profit, according to a 2016 Washington Post article about the company.

After losing $1 billion, Trump Hotels filed for bankruptcy protection in November 2004, the same year DJT was delisted from the New York Stock Exchange.

“I don’t think it’s a failure, it’s a success,” Trump told NBC News in a 2004 interview, after the bankruptcy filing showed $1.8 billion in debt and the stock was trading at around 50 cents per share.

“In this case, it was just something that worked better than other alternatives,” he said of the bankruptcy.

“It’s really just a technical thing, but it went well.”