Trump and Kamala Harris faced off on the debate stage for the first time on Tuesday night, and markets were unimpressed. Shares of Trump Media Technology Group fell more than 14% in overnight trading and continued to plummet after the market opened.
Trump Media, which owns social media platform Truth Social and trades as DJT, has risen and fallen with the former president’s fortunes. That number spiked after the attempt on his life and his defeat of Joe Biden in the first debate. The company’s shares were up 3% ahead of Tuesday’s debate.
The company’s stock is now plummeting following his poor performance in the first debate with Harris. Without his favorite opponent, Joe Biden, Trump has become an old man on the stage. He snarled about immigrants devouring ducks and cats while Harris looked on in confusion.
Trump has billions of dollars of his personal wealth tied up in Trump Media. He owns nearly 115 million shares of the company, and his personal wealth fluctuates with the stock price. When he went before a national audience Tuesday night to spread a conspiracy theory that immigrants eat pets, his stock was worth about $2 billion.
The day is coming when Trump can cash in on those stocks. A lock-up clause preventing him from selling his shares is set to expire on September 19. Every bad political moment between now and then threatens to weaken the ultimate payoff.
There’s always the possibility that Trump media will surge again. His political fortunes and stock price are both chaotic and prone to wild swings. But even the degenerate gamblers on Polymarket now have Harris beating Trump. Polymarket has been bearish on Trump for weeks as Harris’ post-convention boost slowly faded. An hour before the two men took the stage, bettors had placed their odds on Trump beating Harris. 52% of people are betting that Trump will win. Harris only had 46%.
As the debate wore on, Trump’s approval ratings fell. People sold Trump tokens and snapped up Harris tokens. As of the writing of this article, Harris’s stock price has increased by 4%, and its total market value has reached 50%. Trump’s approval rating fell 3% to 49 points.
On Predictit, another binary prediction gambling site like Polymarket, Trump has been out of favor for weeks. The debate didn’t do him any favors either, with Kamala’s bet at 55 cents to Trump’s 46 cents.
