Former President Donald Trump has returned to Bloomberg’s list of the world’s 500 richest people for the first time since August, as shares in his company have surged in value in recent weeks.
Trump, who owns around 57 percent of the shares in the media company that operates Truth Social, has re-entered the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, thanks to stock’s meteoric rise. His estimated net worth jumped to $6.5 billion on Oct. 22, putting him in 481st place on Bloomberg’s list.
The former president fell off the list in August as shares of Trump Media & Technology Group, which trade under the ticker symbol DJT, gradually slid from a recent peak of around $45 per share in mid-July to around $12 per share in late September—before rebounding sharply. The price of DJT stock has tripled in value since the September low, closing at $34.39 on Oct. 22 and trading at the $35.85 mark at the time of reporting on Oct. 23.
Trump Media’s market cap is currently around $7.20 billion, making the former president’s stake worth around $4.1 billion. At its peak in late March, shortly after its Wall Street debut, DJT stock traded at $66.22, taking the company’s worth to nearly $10 billion.
A number of retail investors in Trump Media are supporters of the former president, with some analysts suggesting they often trade the stock as a show of support for him. For others, it may be a way to speculate on Trump’s prospects of defeating Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris in the upcoming presidential election.
Matt Tuttle, CEO of Tuttle Capital Management in Riverside, Connecticut, said in a post on X in mid-October that he sees the price of DJT strongly correlated with the chances of a Trump victory.
“It’s really simple. People realize that if Trump gets elected, this stock has the potential to do something,” Tuttle wrote in the Oct. 14 post.
In a more recent note to investors on Oct. 23, Tuttle predicted some potential pullbacks in DJT as corrections to feverish buying activity.
“Interestingly, DJT popped up on my short watchlist again today. These are system trades that look for overbought stocks. I would be buying puts if DJT goes up 2 [percent] and again up 4 [percent]. If it doesn’t pop, then we do nothing,” he wrote.
At the time of reporting, DJT was up more than 4 percent on the day so far, and on track for a higher close.
Trump Media reported its second-quarter 2024 financial results in August, ending with $344 million in cash and no debt. Despite a net loss of $16.4 million for the quarter, the company said it expects revenue growth from a new TV streaming service called Truth+.
From The Epoch Times