Trump Media & Technology Group (DJT) stock was briefly halted by volatility in late afternoon trading Tuesday as investors braced for more wild swings as Election Day begins in the United States.
Shares quickly erased a 15% gain and reversed a double-digit percentage rise on Monday to start the week. The stock recovered somewhat heading into the close, rising nearly 5%.
Shares suffered their biggest percentage decline last week and closed down about 20% to end the five-day period on Friday, shaving about $4 billion off the company’s market value. Still, the stock has more than doubled from its September lows.
The recent price movement comes as investors await the results of the presidential elections between Republican candidate Donald Trump and Democratic candidate Kamala Harris.
Volatility in stocks is expected to continue. One investor warned that if Trump loses the election, DJT shares could fall to $0.
“It’s a binary bet on the election,” Matthew Tuttle, CEO of investment fund Tuttle Capital Management, recently told Yahoo Finance Motivators.
Read more: Trump vs. Harris: 4 ways the next president could affect your bank accounts
Tuttle, who currently holds put options on the stock, said the stock’s trajectory hinges on the “buy the rumour, sell the truth” trading strategy.
“I imagine the day after he wins, you’ll see a decline in that,” he said. “If he loses, I think the score will go to zero.”
DJT has taken on “a life of its own,” said Steve Sosnick, chief strategist at Interactive Brokers.
“The stock has been choppy on the way up, and when a stock is choppy one way, it tends to be choppy the other way,” he said on a call with Yahoo Finance last week.
Before the recent volatility, shares of the company — home to the Republican candidate’s social media platform, Truth Social — had been rising steadily in recent weeks as domestic and offshore betting markets shifted in favor of a Trump win.
Prediction sites like Polymarket, Expect itand everything All of them showed Trump’s presidential chances ahead of Democratic nominee and current Vice President Kamala Harris. However, that lead narrowed significantly over the weekend as new polls showed Harris in the clear Beating Trump in Iowa Which historically voted Republican.
As betting markets tighten, National opinion polls Both candidates appear in a nearly deadlocked race. Opinion polls in key battleground states such as Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, which are likely to decide the fate of the elections, show very slim margins.
In September, the stock traded at its lowest level since the company’s debut following the end of a highly publicized lockdown period. Stocks were also under pressure, with previous polls in September showing Harris with a larger lead over the former president.
Trump founded Truth Social after he was kicked off major social media apps like Facebook (META) and Twitter, now He officially returned to publishing on X in mid-August after a hiatus of about a year.
As Truth Social tries to take on social media companies, the company’s fundamentals have long been in question.
In August, DJT I mentioned Second-quarter results revealed a net loss of $16.4 million, nearly half of which was related to expenses related to the company’s SPAC deal. The company also reported revenue of just under $837,000 for the quarter ended June 30, a 30% decline year over year.
Last month, the company revealed that its CEO had resigned in September.
Trump keeps approx 60% interest In DJT. At current levels of about $36 per share, Trump Media has a market cap of about $7.2 billion, giving the former president a stake worth about $4.3 billion.
Alexandra Canal He is a senior reporter at Yahoo Finance. Follow her on X @allie_canal, linkedin, And email it to alexandra.canal@yahoofinance.com.
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