By Caroline Valetkevitch and Susan Heavey
NEW YORK/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Shares of Trump Media & Technology Group rose on Friday after newly elected U.S. President Donald Trump said he did not intend to sell his shares in the company, which owns his Truth Social media platform. to sell.
In a post on Truth Social, Trump dismissed what he described as rumors that he planned to sell shares a day after the stock collapsed.
“There are false, untrue and probably illegal rumors and/or statements from perhaps market manipulators or short sellers that I am interested in selling shares of Truth,” Trump wrote.
“Those rumors or statements are false. I have no intention of selling!” Trump added.
The company’s shares closed 15.2% higher at $31.91 on Friday, hitting a session high of $33.03.
The stock was briefly halted due to volatility after Trump’s comments.
The company’s shares tumbled on Thursday as speculative bets on Trump winning a second four-year term lost steam a day after his victory over Democrat Kamala Harris. The stock rose 5.9% on Wednesday after Election Day on Tuesday.
While Trump and Vice President Harris were nearly tied in most polls leading up to the election, online betting markets increasingly favored the former president, prompting investors to pile into securities they thought would benefit them would benefit or come under pressure under his leadership.
That resulted in a roughly 200% increase in Trump Media stock in the six weeks before the election.
Trump had already said in September that he would not sell his shares in the company and would not leave the social media platform he founded.
Trump owns nearly 115 million shares and has a roughly 53% stake in Trump Media. At Friday’s share price, his stake in the company was worth about $3.7 billion, while its total market capitalization was about $7 billion.
The stock’s 30-day implied volatility — an options-based measure of how much traders expect the stock to fluctuate in the near term — has retreated from a record high of 300% just before the election, but remains very high at around 200% high. per Trade Alert data.
Even though the presidential election is over, options traders see stocks swinging as much as 25% in the coming week, LSEG options data shows.
