DJT stock price update: Trump Media shares continue to sink after lockup period expires

Shares of Trump Media & Technology Group Corp. (ticker: DJT) are trading lower in premarket this morning after the lockup period that prevented former president Donald Trump and other early investors from selling their shares expired. As of the time of this writing, DJT shares are trading down more than 4% from yesterday’s close. The stock currently sits at $14.05 per share. If it opens at that price, it would be an all-time low since its debut via a SPAC merger in March. What’s driving the fall? It’s hard to say why the shares are trading lower this morning. There have been no announcements that Trump or DJT’s other early investors sold a large amount of their shares. (The former president has said that he has no plans to sell.) It is estimated Trump owns around $2 billion worth of DJT shares. The most likely reason behind the decline in premarket is uncertainty over which investors, if any, who were barred from selling their shares before the lockup expired have done so. But it’s easy to see why early investors who were previously barred from selling their shares may want to exit as soon as they can. DJT shares have been pummeled since March when they traded at a high of over $71 per share. However, in the past six months alone, DJT shares have lost more than 58% of their value.  One of the biggest jumps in the share price this summer happened after the former president was wounded in an assassination attempt in July, which saw the stock jump from around $31 per share to around $46. But since, then the stock has been on a fairly steady downward trajectory, barely staying above $14 per share in premarket this morning. A belief stock Investors could also be nervous about the future of Trump Media—especially if the former president loses his reelection bid in November, which some polls suggest is now a possibility. One of the biggest problems for DJT, as Fast Company previously noted, is that it is widely considered to be a “belief stock,” which means its share price is driven primarily by the popularity of the personalities behind the stock—in this case, the former president—instead of any underlying financial fundamentals. If Trump does lose, it may mark the end of his political career, and if so, his ardent followers may feel less compelled to engage on his social network, Truth Social, which is owned by Trump Media & Technology Group. Less engagement means advertisers have fewer compelling reasons to spend their ad dollars on Truth Social, which would negatively impact the coffers of Trump Media.