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.

  • Rob T Firefly@lemmy.world
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    7 months ago

    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.

      • Ann Archy@lemmy.world
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        7 months ago

        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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            7 months ago

            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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      7 months ago

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