Mega-Thread: Trump Focused Discussion

[DarkTZeratul]

Don Snoreleone.

My Representative went with "Drowsy Don" on Twitter.

[Breccia]

Here's how users on Truth Social are feeling about Trump Media's steep stock decline

Ladies and gentlemen and Greymanes, get your fucking popcorn out for this one.

Users on the social media platform — referred to on the site as "Truthsayers" — have been buzzing about the stock's steep decline since it went public at the end of March. Shares of Trump Media have tanked more than 50% since March 27, with the stock dropping another 18% this week after the company moved to allow insider shareholders to potentially sell stock before the six-month lockup period is up. Shares declined further on Tuesday after the company announced that it would launch a streaming platform.

Reactions to the plunge on the social media site ranged, with some users expressing shock and dismay, to acknowledgment that the shares might not regain lost value. A few said the sell-off was evidence of a conspiracy to discredit the former president and tank his net worth.

"Question! How?"

Never said. I find it interesting to blame a sell-off on a conspiracy to defeat Trump, when it means you'd have to have invested in Trump to have the stock to sell off in the first place. (We've seen the comments about short sellers and why they can't do it all on their own)

"What is happening to DJT stock," one user said in a reply to a post from Donald Trump's official account, claiming they had invested their life savings into the company. "Please do something about the crash.

More conspiratorial Truthsayers have accused short-sellers of foul play, claiming that the share price has been artificially lowered somehow.

"Remain Calm," one user wrote on April 15, the day Trump Media shares plummeted 18%. "This drop was literally just someone selling 140k shares in 10 minutes premarket. This is extreme manipulation at best. There isn't a massive sell-off. It's one or a handful of people trying to cause panic."

"They'll do anything to discredit President Trump," another user replied. "God has different plans and will save the nations in HIS Perfect timing."

Other users blamed the Securities and Exchange Commission, as regulators did not pause trading of the stock during its decline. The SEC may suspend trading for up to 10 days if it believes doing so would protect the public in the event a company is not meeting its duties to shareholders. This is different, however, from a trading halt, which is ordered by an exchange to protect investors from excessive volatility.

"Wait wait, the SEC can lock up a specific individual company's stock?"

Yes they can. They did it four times last year.

Here is the SEC.gov filing of one of them. The company didn't file and broke the law. Stockholders were protected from the bad-faith company. I don't believe the Truth Social poster knows that's the standard trigger, so maybe they should have read Investopedia for like ten fucking seconds.

• Suspended trading occurs when the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) intervenes in the market to halt trading activity due to serious concerns about a company’s assets, operations, or other financial information.
• The SEC has the authority to suspend the trading of a security for up to ten trading days to protect investors under Section 12(k) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934.
• The SEC cannot forewarn investors about an upcoming suspension because a premature announcement would have an unfair negative impact on existing investors.

Do you know who Investopedia cited as the best example of the SEC locking a company's stock down?

Enron.

Yes, that Enron. For those of you who don't know, this is the Wikipedia page for "the Enron Scandal" but bear in mind, me, Chef Fucking Breccia Son, am saying "yes, that Enron" so at this point you already know what you'll find.

You do not want to be part of a company that the SEC is pausing trading of. That company is not in a good place. That company is accused of doing something bad/illegal and as a result misleading or defrauding investors. If you're saying the SEC should halt trading of DJT, you are saying DJT is breaking the law. Or, you're a fucking idiot asking for something that doesn't make sense.

Speaking of fucking idiots:

"DWAC has fallen over 30% over the last few trading days but they don't cease trading. They don't like Trump and his policies, especially his creation, Truth Social, so they are trying to destroy his company, DJT," one user claimed.

A smaller number of users were still touting the stock amid the plunge. Buying the shares is an "excellent" way to support Trump's presidential campaign, and an investment in "uncensored free speech," some Truthsayers wrote.

"I think daddy Trump has some surprises for us, we just have to be patient and wait for it," one Truthsayer recently wrote on Trump Media stock. "NFA but I'll buy more tomorrow. Gotta love the price."

So as you can see, those to blame for this are, in no real order,
1) people who own part of the company and still want it to fail
2) the SEC for not halting trading of an illegal company
3) the SEC for somehow making the price drop despite not buying or selling stocks but letting the free market run
4) a handful of people one time, apparently every day since March 27th, somehow
5) people not loving Daddy Trump enough to buy his stock to help his campaign
6) someone selling 140k shares out of 140 million shares, most of which Trump owns
7) God Himself, and
8) do something!

Opened at $27.00 at time of writing $22.82 and falling.

[The Stormbringer]

You love to see it. Morons and their money are soon parted...

[Edge-]

Honestly a lot of those comments could be posted on /r/wallstreetbets and you'd struggle to tell. All that's missing is a bit of complaining about FUD.

[Breccia]

So just throwing it out there: back when DWAC was just DWAC the floor was $10. That's because a failed vote would end up in a refund of the original $10.

I have posted in the last 72 hours two different articles with two different experts and two different floors, $5 and $2. We're not there yet.

Based on a few regression models I slapped together, the current trading seems like it'll level off closer to $18 or so. But regression models are based on past numbers and not the realities of the situation. In other words, those experts are predicting a major and contextually realistic change coming. "Video streaming magically somehow!" wasn't it, the price kept dropping.

What could that be? I have three guesses based purely on my inexperience.

1) The stock was always a giant meme you paid money for. Memes stop being funny when they're no longer fresh. People will decide that buying at $80 and holding onto a joke stock for $60 worth of loss is enough, and cash out before $60 becomes $70.

2) The SEC does, in fact, investigate, and everyone keeps hitting Control-R until "sell" isn't greyed out anymore, and dumps what's proven to be an illegal company's stock.

3) My personal bet: the board lets Trump sell his stock, he does so, wipes his tiny hands clean and returns to Twitter. The price drops from scraps, through crumbs, to dust, as not even Trump wants anything to do with his own company anymore. And of course, r/sleepydon or whatever blame anyone other than Trump for Trump's actions that cost them all their money.

Did I miss an option? What else could cause a predictable but context-free slope towards $18 to break through and hit $5 or $2?

- - - Updated - - -

Hey @cubby are you familiar with this slang related to your profession?

Judge bench-slaps Trump lawyer 5 times on day one of hush-money trial

It took New York Supreme Court Justice Juan Merchan four hours on Monday to dispense with pretrial matters before starting jury selection in Donald Trump's Manhattan hush-money trial.

In that time — and as an international press corps watched and took notes — Trump's lead lawyer, Todd Blanche, was rebuked at least five times for his lawyering.

1. "I've noticed that the font has been getting increasingly smaller."

2. "Well, I don't know how you managed to get all those motions filed then."

3. "Please direct me to the portion of the original gag order, or the subsequent gag order, where it makes any exception if Mr. Trump feels he is under attack. I don't recall inserting that anywhere in either gag order."

4. "Counsel, it's important to keep breaks at a given time."

5. "You don't think he should be here at all right now?"

Feel free to read the article for context, except #1. Trump's lawyer was abusing "single page" by writing in teeny tiny font. And Trump should be extra concerned that the judge isn't taking the gag order lightly or favoring Trump when he discusses it.

[Rasulis]

Did I miss an option? What else could cause a predictable but context-free slope towards $18 to break through and hit $5 or $2?

The internet. There is nothing but bad news articles on DJT out there.

According to WSJ, which typically is pro-Trump, the stock has an EPS of negative $0.10 as of 4th Q 2023. The next quarterly report will likely show worsening financials in 1st Q 2024. That will really motivate people to sell.

[Breccia]

The next quarterly report will likely show worsening financials in 1st Q 2024.

Ah yes, I mentioned quarters before. Namely, that the stock holders wanted to bail before that came out. Good catch.

That said, anyone who genuinely doesn't know and genuinely wants to know if Truth Social is making money or not would be able to find out in seconds. They shouldn't have to wait three months to be told by headlines.

[The Stormbringer]

Ah yes, I mentioned quarters before. Namely, that the stock holders wanted to bail before that came out. Good catch.

That said, anyone who genuinely doesn't know and genuinely wants to know if Truth Social is making money or not would be able to find out in seconds. They shouldn't have to wait three months to be told by headlines.

They don't have to wait to be told by headlines... they're just so stupid and/or drunk on the Trump Kool-aid that that's the only way that they can make these decisions. Why would they be researching the awesome amazing TRUTH SOCIAL, amazing awesome social media that The Donald Trump El Presidente made? Surely it's going to be doing just fine!

[Edge-]

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...-b2529384.html

Of the people willing to step up to a microphone outside the courthouse and defend Mr Trump for allegedly paying off a porn star to hide his alleged affair from prospective voters, two offered something of a wild defence: that they opposed the charges because they too had paid for sex on more than one occasion, and assumed most men had done the same.

It didn’t matter to them that Mr Trump is not being accused of paying for sex, but rather accused of having embarked on several extra-marital affairs and falsifying business records over payments made to hide those affairs from the voting public in 2016.

One of the supporters offered, unprompted, that he had spent a lot of time in the east Asia in the pursuit of such earthly pleasures.

“What do you think I do in Thailand, just sit in a chair?” he asked, incredulously. “That’s what we do as men, you know?”

Honestly, 50/50 on whether these two are truthful and honest or trolls.

It was hard to move outside the court without bumping into people proudly declaring they had stormed the US Capitol on 6 January 2021, and at least one person baselessly blamed child-trafficking Democrats for a politically motivated prosecution – a pet theory of the QAnon movement.

Another supporter, who identified himself as “Gary from Staten Island”, delivered an animated and updated interpretation of Dwight D Eisenhower’s speech on the military-industrial complex to a confused reporter from German television news, expertly connecting the dots between the war in Ukraine, the British establishment and Stormy Daniels.

Honestly, the dudes bragging about traveling to Thailand to pay for sex are probably being truthful.

[Breccia]

“What do you think I do in Thailand, just sit in a chair?” he asked, incredulously. “That’s what we do as men, you know?”

They do know that, in Thailand, what they did probably was men?

[Rasulis]

They don't have to wait to be told by headlines... they're just so stupid and/or drunk on the Trump Kool-aid that that's the only way that they can make these decisions. Why would they be researching the awesome amazing TRUTH SOCIAL, amazing awesome social media that The Donald Trump El Presidente made? Surely it's going to be doing just fine!

That's what I find to be interesting. Retail investors that bought meme stocks during the pandemic fully understood that if they did not get out in time, they would lose money. Many did because they either got out too late or kept waiting for the stocks rebound. Which some of the stocks did. However, none of them were under the illusion that those meme companies would ever be profitable.

Trump supporters on the other hand, despite evidence to the contrary, truly believe that one day Trump Social will become this trillion-dollar company that surpasses X and Meta.

[Breccia]

Well it stabilized. $22.84 at time of writing. That's still a significant loss in one day, but, it's a significant loss in a day after they announced video streaming.

"Does anyone believe they'll get that?"

Yes. Idiots.

[gondrin]

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...-b2529384.html



Honestly, 50/50 on whether these two are truthful and honest or trolls.



Honestly, the dudes bragging about traveling to Thailand to pay for sex are probably being truthful.

The biggest irony of all of this, and I've said it in the past, is that Trump isn't in trouble for paying for sex(unless it is with a minor, it is generally a misdemeanor that ends up in a fine and no jail time), it is the fact he took money from his business to pay for someone's silence. If he would have just paid from his own bank account, he literally wouldn't be in court right now. Trump was so worried about spending his own money that now he is in court because he couldn't be assed to do so.

- - - Updated - - -

That's what I find to be interesting. Retail investors that bought meme stocks during the pandemic fully understood that if they did not get out in time, they would lose money. Many did because they either got out too late or kept waiting for the stocks rebound. Which some of the stocks did. However, none of them were under the illusion that those meme companies would ever be profitable.

Trump supporters on the other hand, despite evidence to the contrary, truly believe that one day Trump Social will become this trillion-dollar company that surpasses X and Meta.

I wonder what they will do when Trump himself actually sells all of his shares which is probably the one bet with Truth Social that I would absolutely make.

[Breccia]

I have to say, if Trump’s stock in the Truth Social, his company, drops any lower, he might do better under my tax plan than his

-- President Joe Biden

[Gorsameth]

-- President Joe Biden

ok that got a laugh out of me

[Twdft]

. If he would have just paid from his own bank account, he literally wouldn't be in court right now. Trump was so worried about spending his own money that now he is in court because he couldn't be assed to do so.

He claimed to be worth 4.5 billion back in 2016 and paid 130k hush money. Since nobody can imagine billions I was curious and deleted a couple zeros... it's like having €45.000 in the bank and being too cheap to pay €1,30

[s_bushido]

He claimed to be worth 4.5 billion back in 2016 and paid 130k hush money. Since nobody can imagine billions I was curious and deleted a couple zeros... it's like having €45.000 in the bank and being too cheap to pay €1,30

Problem with "wealth" like this (even if his wasn't laughably overexaggerated) is that it's not as liquid as just having $45k in the bank. It's tied up in a bunch of other shit. And in Trump's case, he's leveraged basically everything already, iirc.

[Twdft]

Problem with "wealth" like this (even if his wasn't laughably overexaggerated) is that it's not as liquid as just having $45k in the bank. It's tied up in a bunch of other shit. And in Trump's case, he's leveraged basically everything already, iirc.

Nah no matter how non-liquid your stuff is, you can't tell me you don't find a buck and 30 cents if your net worth is 45k

[Gorsameth]

yeah Trump had the money and could have gotten the money easily. But Trump is Trump and if he can get someone else to pay for it he will do that 100 out of 100 times.

[Breccia]

And in Trump's case, he's leveraged basically everything already, iirc.

Hey, didn't Trump comment on exactly this? Hold on.

Trump claims he has $500 million in cash, undercutting lawyers' claims on bond money

There we go. Issue of liquidity resolved.

Now following @Twdft this would be like having $5,000 in the bank and being unwilling to pay $1.30 Proportionately that's better, but still bad.

"But wasn't Trump lying?"

Yes he was, both times. Know what else he was lying about?

Welcome back to 2018.

Trump acknowledged a $130,000 payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels on Thursday, but said a non-disclosure agreement was "used to stop the false and extortionist accusations made by her about an affair."

Contradicting previous statements that he knew nothing about any sort of payment, Trump tweeted that these agreements are "very common among celebrities and people of wealth."

Trump also tweeted that campaign funds "played no roll in this transaction" — misspelling the term "role" — though some legal analysts said the previously unreported payment could be considered an in-kind political contribution subject to federal law.

Giuliani, appearing Thursday on Fox & Friends, to discuss the non-disclosure agreement, said: “Imagine if that came out on October 15, 2016, in the middle of the last debate with Hillary Clinton?"

Later, in an appearance on Fox Business Network, Giuliani said, "this was never about the campaign. This was about personal reputation. The money wasn’t paid to help the campaign or hurt the campaign."

Wow. A lot of that aged really badly.

But yes, Trump said it was a completely fine thing to do. Which is why he hid everything behind someone else's bank account. And yes, those interviews/that article came out because Cohen was singing to the cops about his role in what he flat-out admitted was illegally paying off Trump's whore.

He should have just paid directly with a business check, if he was telling the truth about it being a completely fine and normal and common and bigly and yuge thing to do. He didn't. He was lying.

Or, he could have paid nothing and said "Stormy Daniels is a liar, do not believe her." Which...he did, didn't he? Could have saved the money entirely. He didn't, he want to risk that people would believe her, which yes in 2016 they would have. So it became "pay her off, push the laptop which turned out to be nothing".

The big thing on the way is Cohen's testimony. Everyone knows what Cohen did was illegal. Cohen will say, on the stand, "I did so on behalf of my client, Donald Trump, who knew this was illegal because I told him it was illegal." We all know that's coming. It will be followed with "Can you prove you told him?" And that's what I want to see the most.