Trump Media & Technology Group’s stock is tumbling again after the company announced a massive new influx of shares. The struggling company is rapidly losing money, and a new stock offering could help it stay afloat.
But there’s a downside to going back to the market with new shares: A new public stock offering of 21.5 million shares announced Monday would add more than 15% more stock to the publicly available shares of the Truth Social owner. That would substantially devalue existing shareholders’ stakes — including that of former President Donald Trump.
Shares of TMTG (DJT) fell more than 15% Monday. The stock had rocketed higher in recent months in anticipation of merging a blank-check acquisition company with Trump’s media business. But it has lost more than 60% of its value from its peak on March 26, the day after the merger was completed and it started trading publicly as TMTG.
It’s not really a safe bet, one of the reasons options are expensive is because they price in the very high volatility of the stock. You can be correct about the future direction of a stock and still lose money on an option based on how much the volatility changes or how long it takes to make that move. And with enough shorting there could even be the risk of a squeeze. Best to just stay far away from that stock.