Trump Media Stock Swings Wildly on Election Day, Triggering Multiple Trading Halts

Illustration photo shows a person checking the app store on a smartphone for Truth Social with a photo of former President Donald Trump on a computer screen in the background, in Los Angeles on Oct. 20, 2021. Chris Delmas/AFP via Getty Images

Shares of former President Donald Trump’s social media company took a wild ride on Election Day, surging by double digits in morning trading before taking a sharp dive in the early afternoon, with the whipsaw price moves triggering repeated trading halts as investors navigated a volatile session while awaiting the results of the tight presidential race.

The price of Trump Media and Technology Group stock, which trades under the ticker DJT, rose steadily in morning trading on Nov. 5, soaring as high as 18 percent—before rolling over shortly after 2 p.m. ET and falling sharply.

The first circuit breaker that halted trading in DJT was triggered at 2:48 p.m., with trading resuming five minutes later. A second trading halt followed at 3:02 p.m., resuming at 3:07 p.m., with Trump Media closing the day’s session down just over 1 percent, after being down as much as 8 percent intraday.

Trump Media stock, which some analysts say is bought by Trump fans as a show of support or is traded by investors seeking to speculate on the result of the presidential election, has seen increased volatility in the run-up to Election Day. After hitting a record low of $12.15 on Sept. 23, DJT embarked on a feverish rally that sent its stock price soaring by more than 320 percent to a recent peak of around $51 per share on Oct. 29. A nearly 50 percent pullback followed, sending Trump Media to around the $28 per share mark on Nov. 1, before rebounding by nearly 30 percent on the eve of Election Day.

Trump owns about 57 percent of Trump Media, which currently has a market cap of around $6.79 billion. The company saw its value balloon to nearly $10 billion one day after its Wall Street debut, when DJT hit a record high of $66.22 per share on March 27. Currently, Trump’s share in DJT is worth around $3.9 billion.

According to Trump Media CEO Devin Nunes, the commencement of DJT’s trading on public markets was a testimony to the U.S. demand for free speech online, rejecting the “stifling censorship” imposed by big tech companies.

“We built this company to protect the American people’s voices and their freedom,” Nunes said in March shortly after DJT made its trading debut. “Having transformed into a public company, Truth Social remains committed to maintaining and vehemently defending a digital space for free expression.”

In August, Trump Media reported its second-quarter 2024 financial results, ending with $344 million in cash and no debt. At the time, the company announced it had launched its TV streaming service, Truth+. Despite a net loss of $16.4 million for the quarter, the company said in the report that it expects potential revenue growth from the new streaming platform.