Trump Media stock slips amid short seller activity

Trump Media & Technology Group (DJT) shares slide further Monday morning as the Truth Social parent company sees major declines since going public through a merger with Digital World Acquisition Corp. in late March.

Morning Brief Anchors Seana Smith and Brad Smith break down the volatility behind this stock, especially after Trump Media CEO and former California Congressman Devin Nunes pushed back against short-sellers casting doubt on the company's performance.

For more expert insight and the latest market action, click here to watch this full episode of Morning Brief.

This post was written by Luke Carberry Mogan.

Video Transcript

- Volatility continuing for Trump Media shares falling in the premarket as the stock's coaster ride continues. The company was valued around $2.9 billion at Friday's close. And the former president is set to receive an additional $1.3 billion in share awards.

Now, this comes after Citadel called the CEO of Trump Media a proverbial loser, following Devin Nunes letter to the NASDAQ. And this name, it's been surrounded, obviously, by opinion. Clearly from the street, people are not shying away from sharing what they think about what has certainly been a volatile run here for Trump Media ever since that agreement had been closed several weeks ago.

We had seen a run up. We are well off those highs that we saw shortly after that merger had been completed. It has attracted a lot of attention from the retail trader crowd. And once again, you're seeing even increased volatility surrounding this name at the open for at least today. And right now, anything can change with any stock. But especially when you take a look at the volatility within Trump Media shares right now opening off just about 2%.

- You know, a lot of what we've seen for Trump Media and Technology Group and ticker symbol DJT has really been more annexed to some of the people who may just be fans of DJT rather than those who are actually digging into the financials of the company and looking at the prospect for this business actually taking market share away from some of the other either large social media players or from the other large streaming giants right now, who are offering ad supported tiers or on the social media side and the duopoly that has been for so many years between Alphabet and Meta continuing to entrench themselves.

Yeah, plus Amazon, Apple, adding on significant advertising conversion pitches for a lot of the advertising and marketing campaigns that are moving forward. So at this time, you've got to wonder how much of that would DJT actually be able to take away from the behemoths that are out there that we're expecting to hear from this week. And then on the other side, what is this then more than just another way to cozy up to some of the existing fans that will maybe buy a hat, maybe vote, and then now maybe vote with their dollars and invest, but a larger question of where perhaps there's some memetic tendency within the trading around this name too.