Trump’s ‘buy’ tip made money for investors who listened
NEW YORK —When Donald Trump offered some financial advice Wednesday morning, stocks were wavering between gains and losses. But that was about to change.
“THIS IS A GREAT TIME TO BUY!!! DJT,” he wrote on his social media platform Truth Social at 9:37 a.m.
Less than four hours later, Trump announced a 90-day pause on nearly all his tariffs. Stocks soared on the news, closing up 9.5 percent by the end of trading.
The market, measured by the S&P 500, gained back about $4 trillion, or 70 percent, of the value it had lost over the previous four trading days.
It was a prescient call by the president. Maybe too prescient.
“He’s loving this, this control over markets, but he better be careful,” said Trump critic and former White House ethics lawyer Richard Painter, noting that securities law prohibits trading on insider information or helping others do so.
“The people who bought when they saw that post made a lot of money,” he said.
Timing of post
Was Trump already contemplating the tariff pause when he made that post?
Asked about when he arrived at his decision, Trump gave a muddled answer.
“I would say this morning,” he said. “Over the last few days, I’ve been thinking about it.”
“Fairly early this morning,” he added.
Asked for clarification about the timing, White House spokesman Kush Desai didn’t answer directly but defended Trump’s post as part of his job.
“It is the responsibility of the President of the United States to reassure the markets and Americans about their economic security in the face of nonstop media fearmongering,” he said.
Another curiosity of the posting was Trump’s signoff with his initials.
DJT is also the stock symbol for Trump Media and Technology Group, the parent company of the president’s social media platform Truth Social.
It’s not clear if Trump was saying buying stocks in general, or Trump Media in particular. The White House was asked, but didn’t address that either.
Trump includes “DJT” on his posts intermittently, typically to emphasize that he has personally written the message.
Stunning performance
The ambiguity about what Trump meant didn’t stop people from pouring money into that stock.
Trump Media closed up 22.67 percent, soaring twice as much as the broader market, a stunning performance by a company that lost $400 million last year and is seemingly unaffected by whether tariffs would be imposed or paused.
Trump’s 53 percent ownership stake in the company, now in a trust controlled by his oldest son, Donald Trump Jr., rose by $415 million on the day.
Earlier, Georgia Rep. and avid Trump supporter Marjorie Taylor Greene bought stocks hit hard by Trump’s tariff threats, with some of her bets so far working out as of Wednesday’s close.
Lululemon, Dell Computer, Amazon, the parent of Restoration Hardware (RH), and a few other company stocks were down 40 percent late last week when she pounced, even amid the market meltdown preceding the pause on tariffs on Wednesday.
RH became Greene’s clear winner. It jumped more than a third since Friday’s close when she bought it after a stunning collapse in price that shook even the head of the furniture retailer.
“Oh, sh…!,” RH CEO Gary Friedman said in a conference call last week as the stock plunged.
Dell, meanwhile, jumped 9 percent since Greene bought the stock last week after it lost more than half its value.
‘Watch this space’
Meanwhile Trump Media was bested by another Trump administration stock pick—Elon Musk’s Tesla, whose surge Wednesday added $20 billion to Musk’s fortunes.
Lawmakers from both major parties have proposed bills banning members from stock trading because of the apparent conflict of interest in owning shares of companies they can heavily influence with positions they can take in office.
Government ethics law expert Kathleen Clark says Trump’s post would have been investigated in other administrations.
“He’s sending the message that he can effectively and with impunity manipulate the market,” she said. “As in: Watch this space for future stock tips.”—REPORTS FROM AP
