Trump Media stock soars ahead of presidential debate

Shares of Trump Media & Technology Group (DJT) are trading higher by as much as over 20% as anticipation builds for Thursday's presidential debate between President Biden and former President Donald Trump. Yahoo Finance Senior Columnist Rick Newman analyzes the stock's recent performance and how the election outcome could impact its future trajectory.

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

This post was written by Angel Smith.

Video transcript

Well, Rick, while you're here, I want to get your take on another story we're watching.

And that is shares of Trump Media and Technology because they're moving to the upside in a big way today.

You're looking at gains of over 21% here.

What do we know about what's driving that?

I don't know why the stock goes up or down.

I mean, this is a This is a small company with a small percentage of shares outstanding.

Um, because so much is controlled by insiders in the lock up that ends in September.

I think of Trump Media as a binary bet on whether Trump wins the presidency or not.

And it seems like every time a poll shows Trump a little bit ahead, then the stock goes up and every time he's a little bit behind.

For example, during the after he got convicted, he came down a little bit in the polls.

Trump Media Group actually went down.

It had been as high as 50 I think recently, and it went back down to 25 so it lost half its value.

Now it's up 11 important thing to know about this stock is that?

It's a It's hard to short this stock right now.

Um, because so many shares are in lock up when the lockup ends, which I think is in September, there's gonna be a lot.

It'll be much easier to short this stock, and that is gonna give us a better, uh, sense of how the market actually values this stock.

So that's coming.

Um, and, uh, my guess is, if Trump loses, I do not see the point of this company.

I don't know why this company exists if Trump is not president, and his political career basically is over.

So, um, that's a big risk for people who hold the stock.

All right.

Options traders set the date on your calendar, September.

You can get in on shorting the stock if you so choose Rick.

Thank you, as always,