By MICHEAL SLOVANOS
SHARES in Trump Media and Technology Group had been in “sell” mode months before the assassination attempt. This was attributed to big share traders indulging in a practice called short selling.
Short selling or “shorting stocks” refers to the sale of a security or financial instrument that the seller has borrowed. The short seller believes that the borrowed security’s price will decline, enabling it to be bought back at a lower price for a profit.
According to a New York Times report back in April, Trump’s company was a favourite for the “shorters” because after the social media company made its stock market debut, many investors were lining up to bet on its collapse. So the traders would borrow the stock and then sell it, hoping to buy it back at a much lower price, repay the lender and pocket the difference.
This constant borrowing of the stock and selling drives the price downwards, which is where these traders want it to go. The practice is despised by smaller traders. Trump company shares were driven down from their opening high of $121 to bargain basement lows of around $13 in June this year. The Times says Trump Media became the most “shorted” special purpose acquisition vehicle in the country.
In January the shares took off again, reaching nearly $80 in March before plummeting back to $22 early in April and then recovering to a high of around $56 in May. Trump himself is reported to own 60% of the 123 million shares in the company with only 5 million available for lending to short sellers.
Interestingly, as the chart (above) shows, the selling started in earnest again in June, with a minor recovery and then more selling in July. The unsuccessful assassination attempt last Saturday sent the stock soaring once more on Monday, which appeared partly to be short sellers desperately buying back the stock to cut some big losses. More than 80 million shares were traded.
Other buyers apparently saw the incident as boosting Trump’s chances of winning the presidency again. The buying boosted the company’s value by $1.5 billion, which should help the former president with some of his horrendous legal bills imposed by crooked New York courts hellbent on sending him broke and/or seizing his property.
A judgment issued in an outrageously crooked civil fraud lawsuit filed by New York Attorney General Letitia James, based on arguments that Trump inflated the value of assets to obtain more favorable loan and insurance terms, cost Trump nearly half a billion dollars – including a nifty $100 million in interest. There were no injured parties in the Trump transactions and all loans were repaid.
The sleazy, grinning Judge Arthur Engoron ordered Trump to pay a nearly half-billion dollar judgment, including about $100 million in interest. The payment included a $354.9 million penalty that Engoron ordered on February 16, plus interest, following a non-jury trial that was stretched out over three months.
Attorney General James was also photographed in the court grinning about the case. In her election campaign she had publicly vowed to “get Trump”. But Engoron saw no reason to rule her out as some sort of politically compromised prosecutor. No, the plan was to “get Trump” and that’s what these slimy Democrats did.
