Shares of Trump Media & Technology Group, owner of the social network Truth Socialfell sharply Thursday after former President Donald Trump was found guilty in a hush-money trial.
New York jury found Trump guilty of falsifying business records in a scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election by paying hush money to a porn actor who said they had sex.
Trump Media shares fell about 9% in after-hours trading Thursday following news of the verdict.
The shares that trade under the ticket symbol “DJT” were extremely changeable Since their debut in late March, they have joined a group of meme stocks that tend to ricochet from highs to lows as small investors try to catch upward momentum at the right moment.
The stock has tripled this year, often making double-digit percentage moves either higher or lower in a single day. The peak in intraday trading reached almost $80 on March 26. For context, the S&P 500 is up nearly 10% year to date.
Earlier this month, Trump Media said it lost more than $300 million last time. quarteraccording to its first income statement as public company.
For the three-month period ended March 31, the company posted a loss of $327.6 million, which it said included $311 million in non-cash charges related to its merger with Digital World Acquisition Corp. DWAC was an example of what happened. known as a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, which can provide young companies with a faster and easier path to publicly trading their shares, but with far less oversight.
Trump Media & Technology this month fired an auditor that federal regulators recently accused of “grand fraud.” On May 3, the media company fired BF Borgers from its independent accounting firm, delaying the filing of its quarterly earnings report.
Trump Media has previously replaced at least two other auditors, with one resigning in July 2023 and another being fired by the board in March while the company was rehiring BF Borgers.
Trump was charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records at his company in connection with an alleged scheme to cover up potentially embarrassing stories about him during his 2016 Republican presidential campaign.
The charge, which is a criminal offense, arose out of compensation paid then-Trump lawyer Michael Cohen after he paid $130,000 for the secret porn actor Stormy Daniels to silence her claims of extramarital sexual encounters with Trump in 2006. Trump was accused of misrepresenting Cohen’s reimbursement as legal expenses to hide that they were related to a hush-money payment.
Trump’s defense argued that Cohen was paying for legitimate legal services.