Trump Media stock drops the day after trading was halted five times for being too volatile

On Wednesday, Trump Media’s stock fell 12% in the first 90 minutes after the market opened. The day before that, trading on the stock was halted five times due to excess volatility. The stock closed at $51.51 on Tuesday but was down to $45.57 on Wednesday morning.

Trump Media has been on a tear over the past month, rising 270%. While the recent trajectory of the stock has been decidedly up and to the right, intraday trading has been characterized by big swings in the share price. On Tuesday, the stock fell 13% in the first hour of trading before shooting up another 16% later in the day. After-hours trading saw the stock fall another 8% from its closing price of $51.

The wild oscillations have been in large part thanks to furious levels of trading activity of Trump Media and Technology Group (TMTG) in the lead-up to next week’s presidential election. 

TMTG stock (ticker symbol DJT) often trades more as a referendum on Trump’s political odds than on its actual business performance. The past few weeks have seen prognosticators point to a tight race that is effectively deadlocked, though tipping in Trump’s favor. Those predictions have favored DJT the stock as much as the candidate. 

After bottoming out at $12.15 a share in late September, the stock saw a surge that coincided with Trump’s rise in the polls. By mid-October, a series of polls showed Trump narrowly edging out Vice President Kamala Harris. Around this time, TMTG had its two highest volume trading weeks since it went public. The week of Oct. 7, 195 million shares were traded. That number was topped the following week when 278 million shares were traded. On Tuesday morning, the stock had outpaced its 30-day trading average by 10:15 a.m. ET.

The huge number of shares trading hands suggest momentum traders may be looking to ride TMTG to some quick, and relatively easy, gains. Momentum traders are investors that look for rising stocks and buy them until they peak. More often than not, these types of investors are looking to capitalize on a positive move in the stock market rather than invest in the business for the long run.

Trump owns roughly 114.5 million shares of TMTG which amount to 57% of the company. So far he has not sold any of his shares despite being legally allowed to after a lockup deadline lifted in September. Trump’s share of the company is worth a little over $5 billion as of this article’s publication, and now forms the majority of his net worth.

TMTG did not immediately respond to a request for comment.