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The price is Trump Media It closed on Friday, down nearly 20% for the week.
DJT shares fell more than 8% in the first hour of trading on Friday, but ended the day slightly higher.
Shares closed up 18 cents, or about 0.5%, at $32.59.
The closing price was more than $38 below the social media company’s initial share price when it began trading publicly on March 26.
Shares of Trump Media, which owns the Truth Social app, have fallen 47.4% so far in April, wiping billions of dollars off the company’s market value.
Former President Trump is the company’s largest shareholder, owning nearly 60% of the company’s shares. Trump is set to begin jury selection Monday in Manhattan Supreme Court for his criminal trial on charges of falsifying business records related to a 2016 hush-money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels.
On March 26, Trump Media opened at $70.90 per share and hit a high of nearly $80 later that day. During the day’s trading, the company’s market capitalization exceeded $9.5 billion.
As of Friday’s close, Trump Media’s market capitalization was $4.45 billion, $5 billion below its high reached more than two weeks ago.
Trump Media began trading publicly a day after merging with Digital World Acquisition Corp., a shell company created to help take a private company public.
Trump Media had revenue of only $4.1 million last year and a net loss of $58 million.
The company’s share price performance and relatively high price have generated strong interest from short sellers, who are placing trades that are essentially bets that the company’s share price will fall.
Ihor Dusaniwsky, managing director of predictive analytics at S3 Partners, a leading financial data market platform, said that as of this week, DJT’s so-called short interest was $208.7 million and the number of shares short was 5.44 million.
Less than 100,000 shares of Trump Media stock are available for borrowing and short selling. A trader who wants to short a stock must borrow shares to sell and expect to later buy back the same number of shares at a lower price, returning them to the lender, pocketing the price difference between the trades.
Trump Media has 136.7 million shares outstanding.
A week ago, traders who wanted to short Trump Media stock had to pay up to 900% of annual financing costs, meaning they would need a $30 per share drop in a month to break even on the trade, Dusanievsky said. .
Since then, however, Trump Media’s short trade financing costs have plummeted to 200%.
Trump Media launched after social media giant X (then known as Twitter) banned Trump from using the app after a mob of Trump supporters invaded the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Trump is the Republican presidential candidate and frequently posts on Truth Social. He used the app to denounce the four pending criminal cases he faces, as well as civil lawsuits that have resulted in more than $500 million in judgments against him.
Trump hosted a party this week at the Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, to celebrate the Trump media.
“I think the truth has become so important. It’s powerful and it’s focused,” Trump told attendees, according to a report on Truth. RSBN News website.
“Remember, we have no debt and we have over $200 million in cash, very liquidity,” Trump said of the company, whose chief executive is former Republican congressman Devin Noone. Devin Nunes.
—Additional reporting by CNBC Nick Wells
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