(Bloomberg) -- Shares in Donald Trump’s media company surged after the Republican was elected the 47th president of the United States and investors touted the stock across social media platforms.
Trump Media & Technology Group Corp. jumped as much as 35% at the market open, before trimming gains to about 12% and triggering a halt for volatility, as investors gamed out how Trump’s return to the White House could impact the company that bears his initials. At its peak, the advance was the largest intraday move since mid-July, when the stock gained after a failed assassination attempt on the former president.
In what he described as the “greatest political comeback” in US history, Trump prevailed in an unprecedented race during which he was convicted of felonies, survived two assassination attempts and crushed a challenge from Vice President Kamala Harris.
The rally presents a large bump to Trump’s net worth, adding about $500 million to his paper value given that he holds a nearly 115 million share stake. The company, which owns the X-lookalike social media platform Truth Social, was worth more than $8 billion.
Investors grappled with the far-reaching effects of a Trump presidency, powering the US dollar higher and Bitcoin to a record, while traders piled into Elon Musk’s Tesla Inc. and other companies seen as benefiting from his return to the White House.
The media company’s stock, which trades under Trump’s initials and went public in March through a blank-check merger, has been volatile since its debut as investors ignored its fundamentals. At times this year the shares traded as a proxy for Trump’s election odds. Shares spiked after the attempted assassination of Trump in Pennsylvania in July, then slumped when Harris entered the race.
Shares jumped on their March debut before slumping nearly six months later. The stock more than doubled in October before swinging in the days leading up to Tuesday’s vote.
Wednesday’s rally came despite quarterly results that showed it lost more than $19 million in the third quarter while delivering just $1 million in revenue, which were disclosed Tuesday evening. Trump Media has said it may never disclose performance metrics like average users or revenue per user — things that most other publicly-listed companies regularly provide.
Looking at fundamentals, the stock price means Trump Media trades on a price-to-sales ratio of more than 2,800. That blows away what meme stocks GameStop Corp. and AMC Entertainment Holdings Inc. did during the peak of their mania, when their multiples maxed out at about 4 and 14 times, respectively.
--With assistance from Joel Leon.
(Updates with additional context.)
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