Trump’s Truth Social stock soars after assassination attempt
Written by ABC AUDIO ALL RIGHTS RESERVED on July 15, 2024
(NEW YORK) — Shares of former President Donald Trump’s social media platform Truth Social soared in early trading on Monday, extending a rally that began in the immediate aftermath of an assassination attempt two days earlier.
In early trading on Monday, shares climbed about 30% to a price of $40. That figure marked the highest level for the stock in more than a month, but shares still stood well below a peak of about $62.
“The stock serves as a little bit of a proxy for sentiment toward Donald Trump himself,” Tyler Richey, an analyst at Sevens Report Research, told ABC News.
“I think there’s a resurgence of people — your die-hard Trump fans and fair-weather supporters — who think, ‘This is a life or death situation, we’re going all in,'” Richey added.
Shares began rising in pre-market trading almost immediately after an assassination attempt at a Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Saturday. The strong performance in recent days indicates the latest in a series of dramatic price swings for the stock.
In the immediate aftermath of Trump’s felony conviction in his hush money case in May, the stock tumbled about 15%, before soon rallying higher than the pre-conviction level.
In March, shares vaulted from an initial offering price of about $50 to a peak of nearly $80. Over the ensuing two weeks, the price fell nearly 70%, reaching a low of about $23.
Analysts who previously spoke to ABC News described the performance of Truth Social as the characteristic fluctuation of a so-called “meme stock.” The term – made famous by pandemic-era examples such as GameStop and AMC – indicates a company that largely appeals to investors on the basis of ideology rather than financial outlook.
Truth Social generated roughly $4 million in revenue last year, government filings show. Meanwhile, the company reported $58 million in net losses over that period. By comparison, Instagram-parent Meta delivered nearly $135 billion in revenue last year, company earnings revealed.
The strong performance for Truth Social on Monday could grant the company an opportunity to reinvest funds and improve the service, Richey said, noting the possibility of an increase in users as Trump draws continued attention in the coming months.
“The financials are atrocious,” Richey said. “But the prospects, while a little doubtful, are still there.”
“If this generates a significant uptick in users, then that could be bullish. Or it becomes a blip of short-term optimism,” he added.
For now, the absence of financial underpinning leaves Truth Social vulnerable to volatility in response to even mildly negative or positive news, experts previously told ABC News.
“The only thing that you can predict is that there will continue to be volatility,” Jay Ritter, a professor of finance at the University of Florida, told ABC News.
The surge in the price of Truth Social on Monday coincided with a swell across the wider stock market. Each of the major stock indexes ticked upward in early trading on Monday, including a record high for the Dow Jones Industrial Average.
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