Shares of Trump Media & Technology Group closed lower Friday after swinging
wildly over the course of the day following the conviction of former
President Donald Trump in his hush money trial.

After the U.S. stock markets closed Thursday, a New York jury found Trump
guilty of falsifying business records in a scheme to illegally influence
the 2016 election through hush money payments to a porn actor who said the
two had sex.

After rising more than 2% at the opening of trading Friday, the shares
ended the day down 5.3%.

The stock, which trades under the ticker symbol �DJT,� has been
extraordinarily volatile since its debut in late March, joining the group
of meme stocks that are prone to ricochet from highs to lows as small-
pocketed investors attempt to catch an upward momentum swing at the right
time.

The stock has tripled this year, in the process frequently making double-
digit percentage moves either higher or lower on a single day. It peaked at
nearly $80 in intraday trading on March 26. For context, the S&P 500 is up
almost 10% year to date.

In a filing with the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission before going
public, Trump Media warned investors of the potential pitfalls faced by the
former president and the adverse affect it might have on the stock.

�President Donald J. Trump is the subject of numerous legal proceedings,
the scope and scale of which are unprecedented for a former President of
the United States and current candidate for that office. An adverse outcome
in one or more of the ongoing legal proceedings in which President Donald
J. Trump is involved could negatively impact TMTG and its Truth Social
platform.�

Earlier this month, Trump Media reported that it lost more than $300
million last quarter, according to its first earnings report as a publicly
traded company.

For the three-month period that ended March 31, the company posted a loss
of $327.6 million, which it said included $311 million in non-cash expenses
related to its merger with a company called Digital World Acquisition Corp.
DWAC was an example of what�s known as a special purpose acquisition
company, or SPAC, which can give young companies quicker and easier routes
to getting their shares trading publicly, but with much less scrutiny.

Trump Media & Technology fired an auditor this month that federal
regulators recently charged with �massive fraud.� The media company
dismissed BF Borgers as its independent public accounting firm on May 3,
delaying the filing of its quarterly earnings report.

Trump Media had previously cycled through at least two other auditors � one
that resigned in July 2023, and another that was terminated by its board in
March, just as it was rehiring BF Borgers.

Trump was charged with 34 counts of falsifying business records at his
company in connection with an alleged scheme to hide potentially
embarrassing stories about him during his 2016 Republican presidential
election campaign.

The charge, a felony, arose from reimbursements paid to then-Trump lawyer
Michael Cohen after he made a $130,000 hush money payment to porn actor
Stormy Daniels to silence her claims of an extramarital sexual encounter
with Trump in 2006. Trump was accused of misrepresenting Cohen�s
reimbursements as legal expenses to hide that they were tied to a hush
money payment.

Trump�s defense contended that the Cohen payments were for legitimate legal
services.