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Trump Media scrambles to stop short sellers from tanking share prices
Trump Media and Technology Group, the parent company of Truth Social, is scrambling to stop short sellers from tanking its share values.
NBC News reports that Trump Media this week sent around suggestions to shareholders to prevent their shares in the company from winding up in the hands of short sellers who are essentially betting on the company's failure to make money.
According to NBC, the "tips include holding DJT shares in a cash account at a brokerage firm as opposed to a margin account, 'opting out of any securities lending program,' moving Trump Media shares to the company’s designated transfer agent, and transferring shares to a bank and 'holding them in your retirement account.'"
Short sellers essentially pay brokerage firms fees to borrow shares on a temporary basis on the belief that the shares will sink in price.
READ MORE: From 'really rich' to begging: Inside Trump's U-turn on one of his first campaign lies
After borrowing the shares, the short sellers proceed to sell them on the open market and then by them back by a specific date when they have to be returned to their owners.
If the share price in that time has indeed gone down, then the short sellers pocket the difference they made between the original sale and the repurchase.
If the share price increases, however, the short sellers lose money because they'll be buying back the shares at a higher price than the original sale.
Short sellers have swarmed to Trump Media shares for weeks now, as its price has plummeted from a high of $66.22 on March 27th to a low of $22.84 on Tuesday, although its price has recovered some of that lost value in the last day-and-a-half of trading.
The longer-term threat to Trump Media's value likely isn't short sellers, however, but simply a lack of profitability. The selloff in shares started earlier this month when the company released an earnings report showing that it lost $58 million in the last fiscal year while generating just $4 million in revenues.
‘Virtually impossible’: Trump demands delay to classified docs case as NYC trial continues
Former President Donald Trump Thursday demanded a pause in his classified documents case in Florida, arguing his lawyers are too busy trying to keep him out of jail in New York City, court records show.
Trump’s attorneys Todd Blanche and Chris Kise doubled down on the weekend's deadline extension demands, opposed by special counsel Jack Smith, in a new request to Judge Aileen Cannon, according to Florida federal court documents.
The attorneys claim they cannot continue without access to a sensitive compartmented information facility, a military term for an enclosed area used to process sensitive information.
“Simply put, [former] President Trump and his counsel cannot prepare — or even discuss — the required filings anywhere but an appropriate SCIF,” the attorneys write. “A virtually impossible task given President Trump and Messrs. Blanche ... involvement in People v. Trump.”
People v. Trump is more commonly known as the hush money trial, which began this week in New York City, where the former president faces 34 counts of falsifying business records to cover up payments made to a star of adult films, Stormy Daniels.
Legal experts also call it an election interference case, as Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg contends Trump paid Daniels not to talk about sexual encounters ahead of the 2016 presidential race. Trump denies the allegations.
Blanche is overseeing both the hush money and the classified documents case — in which the former president stands accused of Espionage Act violations linked to classified documents found in his Mar-a-Lago bathroom, among other places — as well as weighing in on the D.C. election interference case.
Reports from inside the courtroom show Blanche’s many responsibilities Thursday included chastising Trump for disobeying court rules by taking out his phone.
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“Trump is using his phone in the courtroom, openly flouting the rules of the courtroom,” reported NBC correspondent Kyle Griffin. “Blanche just told him to stop and Trump tucked the phone in his pocket while looking annoyed.”
Thursday’s filing also contains the promise that the New York City trial is moving along at rapid speed.
“The trial is proceeding expeditiously,” the lawyers write. “And jury selection may be completed by the end of this week.”
This letter arrived the same day two jurors were excused, leaving just five selected for a panel of 16.
This is hardly Trump's first attempt to delay the Florida trial, a tactic legal experts say is aims to push the court date past the presidential election. If Trump reclaims the White House, he could essentially kill the case.
