Trump Media stock closed up more than 18% on Monday, with the Truth Social owner extending a dramatic recovery from recent stock lows and adding hundreds of millions of dollars to Donald Trump’s paper net worth. Added.
DJT’s recent surge comes as betting odds appear to be shifting in Trump’s favor at multiple online election betting markets, after weeks of leaning toward Democratic nominee Vice President Kamala Harris.
Monday’s surge also coincided with Trump Media’s launch of a new site for its TV streaming app Truth+.
Trump Media traded at an intraday high of more than $30 per share and closed at $29.95.
The company’s stock has been heavily traded in recent trading, with shares trading at multiples of the company’s 30-day average trading volume. More than 57 million shares traded on Monday.
Last week, bets on the outcome of the presidential election sponsored by contract market Calci and predictive trading platforms Polymarket and PredictIt all indicated that the odds of a Trump victory were increasing.
Because these online gambling platforms are not methodologically based on sound data, the changes have occurred even though the latest polls at the national level and in key battleground states continue to show close races.
Analysts have long suspected that many individual investors in Trump Media are fans of the former president and are buying and selling stocks to support him or bet on his chances of winning the White House. I’ve suggested it.
This dynamic may help explain why the company behind Truth Social has a market capitalization of about $6 billion, but a relatively small user base and low revenue.
Trump owns nearly 57% of the company, worth about $3.4 billion at Monday’s closing price. According to Forbes, he has vowed not to sell his stocks, which currently account for more than half of his net worth on paper.
Meanwhile, Trump Media announced Monday morning the launch of a separate website for its in-platform streaming service, Truth+.
A slim version of Truth+ already exists on Truth Social, but the new site will offer “the full range” of the company’s streaming programming, Trump Media said in a press release.
The site says it offers more than 1,000 “new movies and series,” including exclusive content. The company’s stated goal is to expand Truth+ to iOS devices and other TV-connected platforms, while also making the service “uncancellable by Big Tech.”
However, most of the film and television productions seem to have been released many years ago. Almost all of the available movies can also be found on Tubi, another free streaming video platform.
Some of the content appears to have been created using artificial intelligence tools.
For example, a 40-minute “documentary” about Al Capone is apparently nothing more than a slideshow of AI-generated photos, accompanied by AI narration and a repetitive music track. It was directed by John Smith and written by Michael Smith.
That piece, “Al Capone: Facts about Al Capone,” is currently featured in the “Selected Content” carousel on the Truth+ site.
