Shares of Trump media Shares fell as much as 7% on Friday, hitting a brand new 52-week low, a day after lockdown restrictions expired that had previously prevented majority shareholder, former President Donald Trump, and other early investors from selling their shares.
Trading volume was higher than average on Friday, with about 15 million shares changing hands as of three:15 p.m. ET.
However, it’ll probably take several days before the general public documents of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) reveal whether this volume is because of sales by previous investors after the lock-up period has expired or whether it is solely a results of an above-average number of personal investors trading the stock.
The lock-up agreement first got here into effect when Trump Media went public in March following a merger with a blank-check company called Digital World Acquisition Corp. (DWAC).
The company has acknowledged in regulatory filings that the top of the lock-up period may lead to large sales of the corporate's shares, which trade under the ticker symbol “DJT.”
But even when the sellers weren’t insiders, the impression that a sell-off was underway within the markets could drive down DJT's share price, the corporate said.
Trump, whose 114,750,000-share stake in Trump Media was value nearly $1.6 billion as of Friday afternoon, said last week that he wouldn’t sell his shares once restrictions are lifted.
“I have absolutely no intention of selling,” he said at a press conference in California on September 13.
The Republican candidate's announcement sent the stock soaring, rising as much as 25 percent before closing up greater than 11 percent. But DJT's slump this week worn out those gains.
At 3:15 p.m., Trump Media was down 6.6% and trading at $13.72 per share, 20% below the week's opening price.
Its intraday low was reached shortly after 10 a.m. ET, when the share price fell to $13.50 – a level not seen since July 2023, when the stock was still DWAC.
Friday's sell-off extends DJT's months-long downtrend, which has seen the stock fall greater than 65 percent since its recent peak in July, which got here after Trump survived an assassination attempt at a campaign rally in Pennsylvania.
Trump Media's market capitalization was over $2.7 billion at 3:15 p.m.
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