Exactly three years after the "GameStop chaos", another stock that is very likely to be "closed-eyed and crazy" by a large number of American retail investors has emerged——Trump Media Technology Group (TMTG) is expected to land on the US stock market under the code "DJT". Since Trump is taking the reverse merger and listing route, stocks bearing the name "Trump" will actually always be traded on the market in the future.

The media technology company under Trump announced its merger with the "shell company" DWAC as early as October 2021. However, the transaction experienced a series of challenges from U.S. regulators and corporate partners, and it was not until this Friday that the "shell company" voted to approve the merger.

According to the latest news before publication, DWAC’s special shareholders’ meeting held on Friday has approved this matter. Theoretically, "DJT" can land on the U.S. stock market as soon as next Monday, replacing the shell company.

Valuation depends entirely on Trump’s fame

According to the merger agreement, after the completion of this reverse takeover,Trump himself will hold 78.75 million shares of the listed entity, almost 60% of the shares. Multiplied by the current price of DWAC, it means that the former US president is expected to be worth nearly $3 billion in one fell swoop. Of course, judging from the current situation where the stock’s valuation is entirely dependent on Trump’s fame,What will happen in half a year is completely beyond the scope of what can be expected.


(Source: SEC)

The current valuation of this stock can basically be said to have little to do with its fundamentals: According to the letter disclosure document,TruthSocial generated a total of $3.4 million in revenue in the first nine months of 2023 and lost $49 million during the same period.

For comparison, the latest market value of Reddit, the "American Tieba" that just went public this week, is about US$7 billion, and this company will receive a total revenue of US$800 million in fiscal year 2023.

It can also be seen from the K-line chart that the stock trend of "shell company" DWAC is entirely driven by news - it once rose above US$170 when the merger news was announced at the end of 2021. Since then, as the merger has not gone smoothly, it has been fluctuating around US$10 in 2023. With the looming trading situation at the beginning of this year, it has promoted the recent round of surge.


(DWAC daily chart, source: TradingView)

The "crazy" attribute has been demonstrated

As we all know, the runaway stock price of GameStop back then was somewhat supported by logic: more stocks of listed companies were short-sold by margin lending than the total number of outstanding shares. The smart and united "Tieba retail investors" pushed the stock price out of control and started a cruel market game.

The situation at Trump Media Group is a little different. There are many retail investors among DWAC investors who bought the stock just to support Trump. There is a "DWAC group" with more than 8,000 people on the TruthSocial platform. The only reason for many people to buy stocks is to support Trump.

Coupled with YOLO investors gaming short-term opportunities, the stock trend has become even more uncontrollable, and its crazy nature has been clearly revealed on Friday.

Ahead of the shareholder meeting vote on Friday,DWAC once rose by more than 10%, and as the voting results came out, a strong selling pressure quickly suppressed the stock price toIt fell by more than 10%, and then began to slowly rise again.


(DWAC intraday time-sharing chart, source: TradingView)

There is also a history...

Speaking of the code "DJT", in addition to being the abbreviation of Trump, there is also a not-so-good capital market story——Trump’s last listed company also used this code.


In 1995, Trump's property "Trump Hotels & Casino Resorts" successfully listed on the New York Stock Exchange with the trading code "DJT". Although it performed strongly when it first went public, it fell into crisis the following year. Even with the stock price plummeting 70%, the company's chairman, Trump, still paid himself large bonuses and salary increases, sparking investor anger.

At the same time, the U.S. SEC also found that Trump's listed company created higher-than-expected profit data in the disclosure of its third quarter report in 1999, but failed to disclose a one-time gain of tens of millions of dollars in profits and excluded an $80 million expense in the adjustment.

As the company's operating performance continues to be sluggish,The stock was eventually delisted from the New York Stock Exchange in 2004 and subsequently filed for bankruptcy reorganization. The company subsequently went through multiple bankruptcies and reorganizations, and was eventually taken over by another tycoon, Carl Icahn.