For the first time in almost 30 years, part of Donald Trump’s business empire has gone public. Trading started with a bang.
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.
Gambling, in my personal opinion, is one of the absolutely most tragic and devastating dependencies there are, and I would include meth abuse among them. At least meth heads tend to live past 40 or so. You get gambling debts and you will be fitted with lead boots in the harbor. I lost my best friend to it, and I've seen others on the same path. Drugs are nothing compared to what gambling does to the brain. It's basically the same, only imagine a drug that you must take a new dose of every 0.82 seconds. Forever.
The shitty thing is, compared to drug addiction if you ODed usually you're the only one who got injured. But with gambling debt, even if you're already sleeping with the fishes, sometimes they still go after your family or business partners. That's what basically happened to my friend, his business partner drowned in debt, stole money from their business ventures and ran away, he's the one who must pay the debt because the dude promised he'll pay back after their business is up and running.
Druggies may steal from you, but gamblers ruin the lives of everyone around them.
Funny you should say that by the way, and horrifyingly sad, but two Russians drove my friend to his mother's home in the middle of the night, shoved her in the car with her son, then was told to pay $10K (which was pure interest at that time) for her son's life. She did. A couple of weeks later he was dead, drowned about a hundred yards away his childhood home.
There was never ever ever ever any reasoning with him. The sheer number of girls he hustled, and by god the money they "gave" him, they were all permanently psychologically damaged after their encounters. Actually a very insane story. He was an amazing guy, literally everybody loved him. He walked into a room, a bar, a subway car... He dominated it instantly, like the lone hero out of some Western movie.
Sorry, I wax sentimental.
RIP Joni.
E: he actually came to me in those weeks leading up to his death and asked me, "if it was a matter of life and death, would you borrow me $10K?", and I answered, "No, because you'd be back next week asking for the same thing, and one day I'd say no and then you'd die anyway". We were always sarcastic and fuck you towards one another but like brothers you know. I didn't understand it at the time, but he was literally asking me to save his life. In hindsight, I don't know how to feel about it, because I was 100% right, yet, what kind of human wouldn't do anything to save their friend's life?
Value Investors might argue otherwise. I've got more than a few shares in stock with a sub-20 P/E ratio. They do exist and you can make money holding them.
They just don't have the rocket ship like growth of your Magnificent Seven or your even more speculative stocks.