Trump Media & Technology Group, the owner of struggling social media platform Truth Social, is began its long-delayed journey as a public company at Tuesday’s opening bell under the ticker symbol “DJT.”

The stock surged about 56% at the open, to $78, and trading was briefly halted for volatility. Trump Media shares have since stabilized at around $70, marking a 40% increase from Monday’s close.

Wall Street is assigning Trump Media an eye-popping valuation of around $13 billion — a price tag that experts warn is untethered to reality.

The skyrocketing share price comes despite the fact that Trump Media is burning through cash; piling up losses; and its main product, Truth Social, is losing users.

“This is a very unusual situation. The stock is pretty much divorced from fundamentals,” said Jay Ritter, a finance professor at the University of Florida’s Warrington College of Business, who has been studying initial public offerings (IPOs) for over 40 years.

  • Ann Archy@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    WELCOME TO FINANCE! There are no rules, and if we break them, we remake them!

    This is a case where I literally both hate the player and the game.

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    3 months ago

    This is literally just a loophole to allow foreign governments to give Trump boatloads of cash. Instead of giving him explicit gifts, you prop up the price of his worthless company’s shares

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      Trump can’t cash out shares for 6 months. So now they have to keep the price inflated for 6 months.

      Could be some folks find value in social media for a group preselected for gullibility.

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        Trump can’t cash out shares for 6 months. So now they have to keep the price inflated for 6 months.

        Unless they’re just unloading their shares onto Rubes. In which case, they only need other people to buy-and-hold at the inflated rate.

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          This is not aimed at you or anyone particular just my thoughts, but it’s amazing how uneducated people are when it comes to finance. I know I am, and every day I learn a little more of how gullible I’ve been. I did live on the streets selling drugs though, and once you see how that game is played, you see how every fucking game is played. You do this and he does that and they do this and that for you and we all come out on top, right? Throw a couple of million dollar lawyers, accountants, legal experts, think tanks, connections to the monetary and industrial elite of the world, and stack the SEC with 92% former and future employees of yours, and suddenly the game makes sense without any need to get the academics.

          It’s not about the math, it’s about who you know.

          If anyone is skeptical then remember exactly what Clump was convicted of and what his punishment was.

          Now he’s crowdfunding that punishment away, and people think that somehow it’s impossible that it’s a scam because of financial regulations? Bruhs…

      • orcrist@lemm.ee
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        3 months ago

        Except he can sell sooner, if certain steps are taken. Or so it has been widely reported.

    • Ann Archy@lemmy.world
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      But which governments, though? Which one, there are so many… I can’t think of a single one that would be motivated to influence US politics and do something so blatantly anti-democratic.

    • Ann Archy@lemmy.world
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      You know… In my life I’ve had to talk a few people out of scams.

      I know they were scammed, it’s blatantly a scam, the evidence is overwhelming, my experience is solid, everyone I know of’s experience says the same.

      Yet they will argue with you back and forth and never really be satisfied because they want to believe it so much, and I imagine it stings a good bit being told you’re being ripped the fuck off and you’re too stupid or inexperienced to understand that.

      I’m never confrontational about it, I just make it very perfectly clear that proceeding would be extremely ill advised, and that even their own worries brought them to me asking for my opinion because they trust my judgment.

      It scares me how long it takes to convince them, and how often in the end they come to me a month later and I ask them how it went, and they went and bought it anyway, for whatever far fetched rationalization they managed to construct for themselves.

      Psychology is real, psychology is simple, all it takes to control humans is to have no care for anything but yourself.

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        “Yes, I know it’s scammy, but I’m getting in on the ground floor so I’m not the one who will be holding the bag” is a sentiment I’ve seen (and occasionally held) entirely too often.

        • Ann Archy@lemmy.world
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          NGL I’ve been there myself more than once. That is how I know. Winners never quit, quitters never win, but if you never quit and never win, you’re a moron.

  • Veedem@lemmy.world
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    This is a roundabout way for billionaires to donate to Trump without him having to necessarily disclose everything.

    • girlfreddy@lemmy.caOP
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      That’s it in a nutshell. The rich want him because he’s malleable and will obey their every command.

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              He did however, set the precedent that workers in some jobs simply wouldn’t be allowed to strike because they’re “too important”, when he forcibly broke an air traffic controller strike.

              Unions and by extension workers, started to erode pretty quickly after that, in such a short time that they became relatively unheard of until recently.

              He also un-funded state run mental hospitals. What to do with all those folks who mentally struggled to function in society? “Dunno! If they can’t make money. Put em’ on the street I guess!” was the Reagan solution. The following step is to “Endlessly ostracize and complain about the unhoused.”

              He pushed the idea of the “wellfare queen”, a charicatured, often minority, character, who had a bunch of kids and used government money to do drugs all day instead of work. This nonsense was used quite effectively to discourage and shame the use of social safety nets, as his administration dismantled them altogether.

              There’s innumerable social ills and societal failings that can be traced back to some policy Reagan and his ilk pushed. Very similar to Thatcher across the pond. He’s largely to thank for corporations having more rights than people, and “Maybe you should just individually work harder” being the answer to everyone who is constantly whipped about by “market forces.”

              Thanks to people like him and Thatcher, people STILL believe that corporations making unlimited riches will somehow lead to higher wages and more days off, instead of going to a hoard in some offshore account, driving wages down, and normalizing mass-layoffs.

              That guy labored endlessly to destroy the so-called “American dream.” But hey, he didn’t invade Iraq!

    • fine_sandy_bottom@discuss.tchncs.de
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      No, it’s not.

      To do that they could’ve just paid him $x to “advertise” on truth social.

      Buying shares this way nets him nothing. He can’t do anything with these shares, by the time he can they will be worthless.

  • waterSticksToMyBalls@lemmy.world
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    It’s literally a platform to talk to the most gullible and easily manipulated group of people. You can hate everything about the platform but you have to admit magas fall for everything and are willing to pay for it. These people bought trump bucks…

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      These people bought trump bucks…

      This isn’t a good representation of them

      They bought them AND tried to use them as legal tender

    • Ann Archy@lemmy.world
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      Ooh, I’m gonna go see how long it takes to be banned.

      Ugh it’s so calculated too… Just as Reddit went full retard, the Dumpf stands there welcoming the exodus to his Glorious One Regime As A Service.

      What happened to Reddit after the Digg! migration was that Reddit turned into shit. And now reddit passes the concentrated shit onto the next gaping mouth who also happens to be President (because let’s not kid ourselves, that’s how we all know it will play out- we are not fighting the Republicans, we are fighting the Russians and the Republicans). When will the centipede stop feasting on our feces?

  • randon31415@lemmy.world
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    Trump hit with huge fine he can’t pay -> Rumors of Trump trying to raise money from foreign governments -> Lawyers push back, say ‘you can’t just accept half a billion from foreigners to pay the fine, there are rules!’ -> Truth Social IPO raises a bunch of money that (foreign) investors are willing to ‘loose’ when the stock inevitably collapses -> Trump puts up the stock as collateral to pay the bond to pay the fine.

    What? He can’t sell his stock for 6 months? No, he isn’t selling it, he is putting it up for collateral, totally legal, totally won’t be investigated by the SEC until he gets elected and fires the head of the SEC and the lawsuit goes away.

    • KevonLooney@lemm.ee
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      He can’t use the stock as collateral for 6 months either or the other shareholders can sue. This dude is not a financial genius. People smarter than him have tried to game the system. Some win but there are a ton of laws and ways to sue for it.

      • kent_eh@lemmy.ca
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        3 months ago

        or the other shareholders can sue.

        Being on the wrong side of a court proceeding (or several) doesn’t seem to be much of a disincentive to Trump doing whatever he wants.

  • shani66@ani.social
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    Being untethered to reality is literally in the core of stock trading. It’s nonsense, modern day magick for the least cool people.

    • Ann Archy@lemmy.world
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      It’s Texas Hold’em with extra steps.

      They are degenerate gamblers.

      Gambling, in my personal opinion, is one of the absolutely most tragic and devastating dependencies there are, and I would include meth abuse among them. At least meth heads tend to live past 40 or so. You get gambling debts and you will be fitted with lead boots in the harbor. I lost my best friend to it, and I’ve seen others on the same path. Drugs are nothing compared to what gambling does to the brain. It’s basically the same, only imagine a drug that you must take a new dose of every 0.82 seconds. Forever.

      • sheogorath@lemmy.world
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        The shitty thing is, compared to drug addiction if you ODed usually you’re the only one who got injured. But with gambling debt, even if you’re already sleeping with the fishes, sometimes they still go after your family or business partners. That’s what basically happened to my friend, his business partner drowned in debt, stole money from their business ventures and ran away, he’s the one who must pay the debt because the dude promised he’ll pay back after their business is up and running.

        • Ann Archy@lemmy.world
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          You hit the nail on the head.

          Druggies may steal from you, but gamblers ruin the lives of everyone around them.

          Funny you should say that by the way, and horrifyingly sad, but two Russians drove my friend to his mother’s home in the middle of the night, shoved her in the car with her son, then was told to pay $10K (which was pure interest at that time) for her son’s life. She did. A couple of weeks later he was dead, drowned about a hundred yards away his childhood home.

          There was never ever ever ever any reasoning with him. The sheer number of girls he hustled, and by god the money they “gave” him, they were all permanently psychologically damaged after their encounters. Actually a very insane story. He was an amazing guy, literally everybody loved him. He walked into a room, a bar, a subway car… He dominated it instantly, like the lone hero out of some Western movie.

          Sorry, I wax sentimental.

          RIP Joni.

          E: he actually came to me in those weeks leading up to his death and asked me, “if it was a matter of life and death, would you borrow me $10K?”, and I answered, “No, because you’d be back next week asking for the same thing, and one day I’d say no and then you’d die anyway”. We were always sarcastic and fuck you towards one another but like brothers you know. I didn’t understand it at the time, but he was literally asking me to save his life. In hindsight, I don’t know how to feel about it, because I was 100% right, yet, what kind of human wouldn’t do anything to save their friend’s life?

          Fuck this woke some feels, sorry for ranting.

  • Margot Robbie@lemmy.world
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    I cannot comprehend how a company can lose 45 million dollars in 9 months by running what is essentially a glorified Mastodon instance.

    Nothing about Truth Social makes any sense.

    • BreakDecks@lemmy.ml
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      Originally it was just a modified Mastodon instance with federation removed. They hired Alex Gleason who maintains a fork of Pleroma called “Soapbox” to make significant changes to the front and back ends of the site.

      Gleason also runs a handful of federated Soapbox instances, all of which are dedicated to far-right “free speech” content, mostly Nazism (Poast) and Trans-hate (Spinster). He also helps admin many other instances dedicated to hate speech.

      Gleason has indicated that Truth Social and Poast run on basically the same codebase.

      Quite disturbing to see the microblogging equivalent of The Daily Stormer with a multibillion dollar market cap on the stock market…

      • Cosmic Cleric@lemmy.world
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        Quite disturbing to see the microblogging equivalent of The Daily Stormer with a multibillion dollar market cap on the stock market…

        To be fair, the code is not the content.

        • BreakDecks@lemmy.ml
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          He was their technical director and the site is absolutely covered with Nazis. Find me a Soapbox instance that isn’t.

          One of the key features of Soapbox (outside of Truth Social) is that you can still see and boost content from other instances that have blocked yours. Gleason even created workarounds to defeat authorized fetch.

          This is so that they can engage in Kiwifarms-style harassment.

          I would absolutely say that the malice is written into the code itself.

  • Ultragigagigantic@lemmy.world
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    Trump is the best thing to ever happen for the 1%. People are more divided then ever, and the media doesn’t have to report on anything but him.

    • MonkeMischief@lemmy.today
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      anything but him.

      Woah now, sometimes they switch it up!

      Did you see what Taylor Swift was looking at recently? Her eyeballs glanced at something for like 5 seconds! What does it mean? The internet is just absolutely going crazy over the fact that insiders claim she farts sometimes too!

      /s

      • Ann Archy@lemmy.world
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        I remember something about a war in Europe, but then out of the blue came a super weak Hamas attack on Israel, and now I don’t know who’s warring whom anymore. Taylor Swift though, she’s got above average looks and talent, so something is good in my world at least.

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    Could Trump’s Truth Social stock value be powered by massive fraud? Experts say things like “slammed,” “mystified,” and “dazzled!” This and more for the next 24 hour news cycle until he does another damn fool thing that we can exploit.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      guarantee this is Russian financing

      Fair more likely it’s Saudi or Israeli money, given how Russians have been cut off from the SWIFT banking system through sanctions.

    • Ann Archy@lemmy.world
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      I am shocked hearing people say that out loud even. Isn’t that extremely, painfully, provably obvious to everyone? No. It is not. It is a matter of “both sides” debate, apparently.

      “Hi, I sell snake oil. It cures cancer!”
      “Oooh, I LOVE not having cancer! I’ll buy 1. No, wait, 1000!”

    • aidan@lemmy.world
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      Russian financing how? They can’t access banks, I doubt they’re wasting precious foreign currency on this.

      • Ann Archy@lemmy.world
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        I doubt they’re wasting precious foreign currency on this.

        Their EXISTENCE hinges on winning the US election right now.

        It’s literally ALL they are “wasting precious currency” on.

        • aidan@lemmy.world
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          Their EXISTENCE hinges on winning the US election right now.

          What does this mean?

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        3 months ago

        They can still trade in rubles with other countries that are willing to trade with them. It’s not inconceivable that they can ‘launder’ a trade via, say India:

        1. Russia buys a few billion-ruble toothbrushes from India

        2. India invests the equivalent in USD with $DJT (minus a cut)

        3. India uses those rubles to trade at market value for goods with other countries that also trade in rubles

        Replace India and Saudi Arabia with any 2 countries on this list: https://www.tbsnews.net/economy/bangladesh-among-over-30-countries-approved-trade-rouble-russian-embassy-705798

        • aidan@lemmy.world
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          Cluing in many people into conspiracies like that would require makes them much harder to keep secret

      • Rob T Firefly@lemmy.world
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        Just because they’re not allowed to access banks doesn’t mean they can’t.

        Lots of people, organizations, and even governments do all sorts of crimes even though they’re really not supposed to. Conceptually speaking, money laundering is a fairly simple crime to do and, like so many crimes, it becomes easier to get away with the more powerful you are.

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            And if you’re gullible it’s easy to reframe them as part of the “nothing is happening in the world and geopolitics are not a thing” conspiracy theory.

              • Ann Archy@lemmy.world
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                Yeah, us communists are all the same, just repetitive propagandistic slogans and dumb soundbites led by an uncharismatic moron telling us what to do.

                Go build a wall, or bridge or whatever.

                Edit: Wait, wait, you weren’t being sarcastic? If so my bad.

        • aidan@lemmy.world
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          Every dollar you launder still has a risk of being caught, like I said, they have more pressing things to spend foreign currency on.

          • Kaefor@lemmy.ca
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            More pressing than possibly owning the next American president? No, they don’t.

            • aidan@lemmy.world
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              His bond was reduced, he doesn’t need the money that desperately that they’d own him

              • Kaefor@lemmy.ca
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                Since there isn’t enough info out there for either of us to be wholly right, I will have to agree to disagree.

                Cheers mate.

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            What? Their money has literally impeded us continuing to give aid to Ukraine. Their investments are paying insane dividends.