Trump Media & Technology Group Shares Plummet After Hush Money Trial Conviction

Shares of Trump Media & Technology Group, owner of Truth Social, have slumped following news of Donald Trump's conviction in his hush money trial.

Trump on Thursday became the first former US president ever convicted of a crime after a New York jury found him guilty on all charges in his hush money case.

Trump Media & Technology Group's stock, which trades under the ticker symbol "DJT," dropped about 9% in after-hours trading, according to the Associated Press.

The stock has been highly volatile since its debut in late March, experiencing significant fluctuations in response to market sentiment and news events. It is part of the group of meme stocks, characterized by their extreme volatility and speculative trading driven by online communities of individual investors.

But despite its volatility, the stock has tripled in value this year, with frequent double-digit percentage moves on a single day.

In Trump Media's initial public offering on March 26, Trump supporters and speculators snapped up the company's shares, sending them soaring as much as 59% in their Nasdaq debut. The company reported revenues of $770,500 for the March quarter and an adjusted operating loss of $12.1 million.

But earlier this month, it disclosed a loss of over $300 million in its first quarterly earnings report since becoming a publicly traded company. The company attributed a significant portion of this loss to non-cash expenses associated with its merger with Digital World Acquisition Corp (DWAC).

DWAC, recognized as a special purpose acquisition company, offers emerging businesses expedited paths to public trading, but with reduced scrutiny.

Trump Media & Technology has also severed ties with its auditor following recent allegations of "massive fraud" by federal regulators. The media conglomerate terminated BF Borgers, its independent public accounting firm, on May 3, resulting in a delay in the filing of its quarterly earnings report.

The felony charges against Trump are related to transactions involving reimbursements to his then-lawyer, Michael Cohen, following a $130,000 payment to adult film star Stormy Daniels.

The payment was to stop Daniels from revealing her sexual affair with Trump, which surfaced during the 2016 election cycle.

Prosecutors said that Trump misrepresented these reimbursements as legitimate legal expenses, masking their true nature as hush money payments aimed at silencing Daniels and preventing her disclosures from tarnishing his candidacy.

In his defense, Trump's legal team claimed that the payments to Cohen were for legal services, rejecting any allegations of wrongdoing.