It’s been about a month since I last nattered on about DJT, the stock of Trump Media & Technology Group Corp, and related matters. Last time, DJT‘s price was $8.58, near it’s all-time low and, thus, well off its high. How’s it doing as of last Friday?
It’s at $10.26/sh[1]. That’s a 19.5% jump in value, and quite a nice result for the investor who bought at $8.58.
Notably, it’s a wheeze for the investors, especially those of MAGA, who bought at $70/sh and have held on in loyalty to DJT‘s primary asset, which happens to be the President of the United States.
So what’s going on?
I’ll tell you what. DJT happens to fall into a small category of stocks which are predicated more on non-economic factors than is normal. Some stocks in this category include those associated with legendary investor and businessman Warren Buffett, stocks associated with companies that issue quarterly dividends that have grown for N years, stocks associated with this or that social trend, and a few other reasons that don’t come to mind at the moment.
Owning DJT, for many in MAGA, is a form of virtue signaling, a way to signal allegiance to the President and his alleged ideals.
The President, in the opinion of many, including myself, is a grifter. This should come as no surprise to readers of this blog. But the problem of DJT is worse than just that. Here’s two headlines and accompanying text found in the news section[2] of the yahoo! finance page for DJT:
My attribution. A bit of content:
“Never sell your bitcoin,” Trump told [crypto summit he hosted] attendees.
He may regret those words now — after his sons Eric and Donald Trump Jr. gambled $2.4 billion of the family’s fortune to buy bitcoin at its peak last year.
As Forbes reports (2), it originally looked like their gamble would pay off, with a potential $1 billion return. Instead, the Trumps have lost more than $1 billion.
Directly below it came this:
How The Trump Family’s Crypto Play Allegedly Became A Money Printer (Moby)
Again, my attribution. Content:
Last week, CoinDesk broke a story about World Liberty Financial, the Trump family–backed crypto venture. The story alleges a scheme to print money out of thin air via their governance token WLFI.
The total amount, around $40 million, was moved to Coinbase Prime for what could have been OTC conversion, custody, or trading by a series of deposits of World Liberty Financial’s governance token, WLFI.
That’s not really the point, though. If these allegations are true, as even Tron CEO Justin Sun (and WLFI’s largest backer) publicly said they are, it means the president and his family are in the middle of one of the biggest self-dealing loops in history.
In the face of headlines selling competing stories, from news sources with ill-defined motivations, it’s hard to really understand whether Trump Media & Technology Group Corp even has a future, much less its present proper valuation. Currently, the market is $2.8B. Maybe it has a crypto treasury worth as much as that, or maybe not. Maybe it’ll merge with a fusion power company, or maybe not – and that fusion power company is a huge question mark in itself, as there are no commercial fusion power plants functioning at the moment.
And their biggest asset, President Trump. Well, even if you like him, and most of the American public seems to have lost their patience with him, there is no denying his age. He has no long-term future, and I mean no disrespect, that’s simply a fact of nature.
Valuations of DJT are exceedingly difficult, and, you know what? If you really are an investor and are not a virtue signaler, there are thousands of other possibilities that are easier to evaluate. Why get involved with a company featuring someone of dubious character, even if you disagree with me?
Virtue signaling can be an expensive hobby.
As always, I’m not a financial professional, just another guy with eyeballs, a brain, and an opinion.
1 Forgive the lack of a chart image from yahoo! finance. Technical difficulties.
2 This is a dynamic page, so what you find may not be what I find.
