Trump’s net worth drops to $1.9 billion as DJT’s media shares plummet

Donald Trump’s net worth has fallen by nearly $2 billion as his publicly traded media company has floundered in the stock market over the past two days.

Trump Media & Technology Group, which owns Truth Social and trades under the symbol DJT, fell 11.7 percent to $35.34 on Thursday.

And that’s on top of the 22 percent decline DJT shares saw on Wednesday.

The stock, which rose more than 24 percent in the days after Trump’s raucous rally at Madison Square Garden on Sunday, essentially traded in all its gains and more.

Like New York Times According to the report, declines in this often volatile stock hurt its 600,000 shareholders, most of whom are average people who support Trump’s candidacy and use Truth Social.

But it’s Trump himself who routinely experiences the biggest fluctuations in his net worth, as he owns a staggering 115 million shares of Trump Media.

Former President Donald Trump looks on from his rally at the Albuquerque International Sunport in New Mexico on Thursday

The stock, which rose more than 24 percent in the days after Trump’s raucous rally at Madison Square Garden on Sunday, essentially traded in all its gains and more.

At DJT’s intraday high of $54.68 on Tuesday, the former president’s stock was worth almost $6.3 billion.

After two days of frenzied selling, that figure dropped to just over $4 billion.

It’s not entirely clear what triggered this, but DJT attracted the attention of many short sellers, i.e. those who believed the stock would fall.

One factor that drove the stock’s 200 percent jump through most of October was that short sellers were forced to buy more shares to cover their losing bets, according to research group S3 Partners.

S3 Partners also noted that DJT’s stock price somewhat reflects the trajectory of Trump’s odds of winning the presidency in betting markets.

Since Trump owns nearly 60 percent of the company, if he decides to sell even a small portion of his shares, it would devastate stock prices and, more importantly, the portfolios of his most ardent followers.

So when the provision banning him from selling his shares expired on September 19, he tried to reassure his fans by vowing that he would not do so.

“A lot of people think the reason DJT is down is because a lot of people think I’m going to sell, and if I sell it’s not going to be the same,” Trump said days before the lockdown period began. Set it to end. ‘But I have absolutely no intention of selling.’

This chart from S3 Partners shows how DJT’s stock price compares to betting odds on Trump’s chances of winning the election

Trump Media was founded weeks after he left the White House in January 2021, but waited more than three years before going public on the NASDAQ exchange.

Stocks generally closely track the upside and downside of Trump’s business and political efforts.

For example, right after he was found guilty in the hush money case, it dropped 9 percent.

The stock fell 21 percent in a single trading day in April after financial records revealed the company lost $58 million in 2023.

Trump invested only a few million dollars in the company’s startup, which means it has done exceptionally well for itself either way.

A Trump supporter named Greg Bowden, 66, who owns shares of Trump Media, told The New York Times that Trump “has no reason to sell.”

Trump’s recent financial crisis comes as millions of Americans head to the polls ahead of Election Day to either return him to the Oval Office or elect his rival, Vice President Kamala Harris, to the top job

Bowden expressed this view in early September, when DJT shares were trading much lower than they are now.

On September 23, four days after Trump was technically allowed to sell DJT, the price reached $12.15.

At that point, Trump’s stake would be worth about $1.4 billion.

Trump’s recent financial crisis comes as millions of Americans head to the polls ahead of Election Day to either return him to the Oval Office or elect his rival, Vice President Kamala Harris, to the top job.

DailyMail.com/JL Partners’ final national poll before Election Day showed Trump trailing Harris by three percentage points.

The poll of 1,000 likely voters, with a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points, shows Trump trending upward, with 49 percent support to Harris’ 46 percent.