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Stock Trump Media The stock price fell 6.6% on Tuesday to close at $16.14 per share. The drop came just 48 hours before the expiration of “lock-up” restrictions that have previously barred the company’s largest shareholder, Donald Trump, and other insiders from selling their holdings.
Until this week, a former president and early investors who received stock when the company merged with a special acquisition company in March and began its public offering were barred from selling their shares by “lock-up agreements.”
Those restrictions are set to expire on Thursday.
Last week, Trump said he would not sell his 114.75 million shares of ownership in Truth Social, which as of Tuesday’s closing price was worth more than $1.8 billion.
“We have no intention of selling,” Trump said at a news conference in California on Friday.
The stock surged 25% after Trump’s announcement and closed up 11% on Friday.
But Trump Media’s losses so far this week have wiped out those gains.
Stocks closed down nearly 4% on Monday after a weekend in which President Trump was the target of a second assassination attempt.
The U.S. Secret Service opened fire on Sunday on a man with a semi-automatic rifle who was hiding on the perimeter of a Florida golf club where Republican candidate Donald Trump was playing.
Suspect Ryan Wesley Routh, 58, fled the scene, was arrested and charged Monday with two federal firearms offenses.
The impact of the weekend threats against President Trump on Trump Media shares was the opposite of how the stock reacted to the assassination attempt on President Trump in July: On July 15, the first trading day after the assassination attempt, Trump Media shares closed up more than 30%.
A Delaware judge also ruled Monday that Trump Media breached an agreement with ARC Global, an early investor that helped the company go public.
Vice Chancellor Lori Will determined that a shell company, Digital World Acquisition Corp., understated the amount of stock ARC Global should have received after the merger that took Trump Media public.
Trump Media’s share price decline accelerated just after 3 p.m. ET on Tuesday, up just a few cents from its lowest closing price since listing on the Nasdaq.
The stock is now down 60% from its most recent high in July, the same month the first assassination attempt occurred at a Trump rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, and 75% from its post-merger high in March.
As of Tuesday’s closing price, Trump Media’s market capitalization was $3.2 billion.
