Trump Media stock climbs back up after sinking on conviction

Shares of Trump Media & Technology Group (DJT) are climbing back from earlier losses following Donald Trump's guilty verdict in his New York hush-money case. The former president was found guilty on all counts of falsifying business records.

Yahoo Finance's Alexandra Canal breaks down how the stock is moving and how the conviction may factor into Trump's 2024 presidential run.

Read more about Trump's guilty verdict here.

Read more about DJT here.

For more expert insight and the latest market action, click here to watch this full episode of Morning Brief.

This post was written by Melanie Riehl

Video transcript

Well, Trump media shares climbing back from earlier losses after former president Donald Trump was found guilty on all counts of falsifying business records.

The former president owns 65% of the company's shares.

Now for more on this, we want to bring in Yahoo Finance's Alexandra Canal.

Rick Newman is still here and we were just showing the price movement that we're seeing in early action.

So right now, we're seeing some gains that initially slid after we heard the news of this.

So it's been quite the role, closer ride here for sure.

Shares have been on quite the ride in extended hours trading.

As you were saying, sha immediately following that conviction, we saw shares down as much as 8% in after hours trading, but now that we're about 15 minutes before the opening bell up about 6% and you have to take these moves with a grain of salt because at the end of the day DJ T operates like a meme stock.

It's a company that continues to bleed money yet we do see this fluctuation of the share price and based where the, the stock closed yesterday on Thursday, the company is worth about $7 billion.

As you mentioned, Trump maintains about a 60% stake in this company.

That means his stake is worth over $4 billion.

Of course, he probably love to use that money to help pay off some of these legal fees, help fund his campaign, but all stockholders are subject to a six month lock up period.

So we cannot access that money at this point.

So, you know, it'll be interesting to see where this the shares go throughout the course of the day and heading into next week and next month when his conviction and his whatever we find out he's going to be in jail if he's gonna have probation moving forward.

I mean, does that just plunge it further into meme stock territory?

This is likely not institutions that are buying up shares here.

Yeah, and, and you know, in May the company reported for quarter quarter results and they did say that the vast majority of shareholders in the stock were retail investors.

This is also a heavily shorted stock as well.

So, you know, like I said, take it with a grain of salt.

I do think it's going to continue to be volatile and continue to operate in the territory.

But it is interesting to me that the share price is now up because we saw it down.

So this might be asking too much, too much rationality.

But any explanation what the thought process is here because this stock is basically a bet on whether Trump wins or loses in November.

Well, the, the rationality is, I don't want to buy a 45 or 47 hat, so I'm just gonna pay 50 bucks for the stock instead.

That's, that's my question.

I mean, is there any rationality for people saying?

Oh, I think this increases or decreases, uh, the odds Trump will win or is it just in whack a dole meme territory?

Well, I think if you look at Trump's base, right?

They are a dedicated base and I think anything that's affiliated with Trump, including this company, including the stock price that could be a light bulb in all of these supporters heads like, oh, you know what, I'm gonna put some money in a DJ T to support Donald Trump to, to, you know, try and lift his spirits during this time of need.

I'm sure that could be something going on.

But to your point, Rick, I think we're gonna continue to be in wack a do mode for the stock in particular because it just fluctuates so, so much and it's not tied to fundamental.

I mean, you, you really do wonder like if Trump gets convicted more times are people just gonna empty, are Trump supporters just gonna empty their bank accounts and buy all of Trump's stuff and send all their money to his campaign?

I mean, I don't expect anybody here to have an answer.

I'm astonished by all the people who said, who, who seem to think, oh, you're in even deeper legal trouble.

So, here's some more of my money.

But that, but that has been the pattern that I know.

I know it from that at all.

We talk about it soaking them.

Basically.

There's a lot of questions, his sentencing also July 11th.

So we could see some more money, more money.

Should you, should you buy the DJ T dip going into the sentencing?

You know, because if he gets jail time, then people would want to buy his stock.

Don't expect to have an answer.

No, I was gonna say all you want to walk out on that one.

Yeah, I don't have an answer to that Shana.

But expect more volatility.

That's what I was sticking with.

That's my story and Rick creates that.

Thanks so much.