Fogbow

I’m a Trump supporter, but as an investor I’m wary of the Trump SPAC

Buying shares of DWAC and its Trump deal ‘is closer to gambling than investing’

Every time I have been to Mar-a-Lago, Donald Trump has been a gracious host to my family, and we have wonderful memories of our times there. Further, the U.S. economy under President Trump was clearly better than it is today.

While I support Donald Trump and have confidence in his abilities, I am less certain that his brand will translate into stock-market successes at this stage.

Remember, enthusiasm is no substitute for fundamentals, and both companies, Trump Media & Technology Group and Phunware, are short on them.

Here are some salient facts that investors should heed.

First, in the case of the DWAC deal, the transaction is not complete. It’s simply been announced. Wall Street is littered with deals that never happened. Aetna never merged with Humana, T-Mobile got away from AT&T, and GE’s $60 billion run at Honeywell fell apart.

Could Trump Media & Technology and its TRUTH app fail to reach an agreement with Digital World Acquisition Corp.? In a word, yes.

Why Shares of Digital World Acquisition and Phunware Crashed Today
These popular Trump-related stocks reversed course after their huge gains last week.

Joe Tenebruso (TMFGuardian)
Oct 26, 2021 at 5:56PM

What happened

Digital World Acquisition (NASDAQ:DWAC) and Phunware (NASDAQ:PHUN) both saw their stock prices rocket over 1,000% at one point last week, as investors' excitement for the special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) and advertising software provider that are linked to former President Donald Trump reached a fever pitch.

But investors' views toward the companies soured on Tuesday. By the close of trading, shares of Phunware and Digital World Acquisition were down 39% and 30%, respectively.

So what

The decline in Digital World Acquisition's stock price appears to have been sparked by comments made by Trump before the market opened. Last week, investors cheered when the SPAC announced its plan to merge with Trump Media & Technology Group. But when the former president shared more details of his plans to build a new social network that would try to rival Facebook and Twitter and a video-streaming service to challenge Netflix, that excitement seemed to wane.

In a statement, Trump acknowledged the difficulties of competing head-to-head with these tech titans: "Since it is both hard and expensive to build a new platform totally independent of Big Tech's infrastructure, it would have to be an extremely well-funded, multi-year undertaking. In addition, such a platform would need the ability to rapidly attract millions of users, welcoming not only Republicans to join, but Independents and Democrats as well."

Those comments likely threw cold water on investors' hopes for a rapid buildout of Trump's planned social media platform and the potential for quick profits.

Meanwhile, Phunware, which saw its stock price soar last week apparently due to investors' hopes that it could serve as a key technology provider for Trump's social network or streaming service, also gave up much of its recent gains. Phunware helped to manage mobile applications related to Trump's reelection campaign, though there have been no reports that it's working with Digital World Acquisition.

The nearly 40% fall in Phunware's share price came after the company said it would sell up to $49.5 million worth of its stock on the open market at currently available prices.



https://www.fool.com/investing/2021/10/ ... e-crashed/

STOCKS Published 1 hour ago
Trump ally Marjorie Taylor Greene loads up on Digital World Acquisition Corp. shares
Greene purchased up to $50K worth of Digital World Acquisition Corp.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene is throwing her support behind former President Trump’s latest business venture.

Greene, a Republican from Georgia, purchased between $15,001 and $50,000 worth of Digital World Acquisition Corp., the special purpose acquisition company linked to Trump’s planned social media platform, according to a financial disclosure.

Greene purchased her shares on Oct. 22 when they traded between $67.96 and $175. They have since traded as low as $52.77.

"This transaction was reported in compliance with House rules and provides all required details about the transaction," Greene's office said in a statement to FOX Business.

Members of Congress and their families are required to disclose any assets purchased or sold, the dates of such transactions and the dollar amount.

"This transaction was reported in compliance with House rules and provides all required details about the transaction," her office said in an email. Greene's purchase was earlier flagged on Twitter by congresstrading.com, a website that tracks politicians' trading.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene bought up to $50,000 worth of shares in Trump SPAC

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green is one investor who appears to have faith in the newly formed company backing former President Donald Trump's social media venture.

A congressional disclosure form shows the Georgia lawmaker last week bought between $15,001 and $50,000 worth of shares in Digital World Acquisition Corp. The disclosure was first noted by Congresstrading.com, which tracks stock purchases made by members of the House and Senate.

Digital World, a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, merged with the former president's company, Trump Media & Technology Group, earlier this month. After going public, Digital World's stock price surged as much as 1,200%. The shares traded at about $70 a on Thursday, valuing the company at $2.6 billion.

A self-proclaimed Trump supporter, Greene has not said what spurred her investment in Digital World. "This transaction was reported in compliance with House rules and provides all required details about the transaction," her office said in an emailed statement to CBS MoneyWatch.

Former President Donald Trump’s new TRUTH social network is in violation of the software license it’s built on and must get in compliance, the holder of the license demanded this week.

The company that holds the software license for the open source code sent TRUTH Social, the Trump-founded venture, a letter demanding compliance with its software license, Mastodon CEO Eugen Rochko said in a statement.

Rochko told TPM last week that he believed an early version of Trump’s network was using open-source software that he developed, called Mastodon, without abiding by the terms of the license that make it available to use.

“Truth Social is required to make its complete source code available,” the letter reads. “We request that Truth Social comply with this important condition of the license.”

raison de arizona wrote: ↑Fri Oct 29, 2021 7:23 pm

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene bought up to $50,000 worth of shares in Trump SPAC

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green is one investor who appears to have faith in the newly formed company backing former President Donald Trump's social media venture.

A congressional disclosure form shows the Georgia lawmaker last week bought between $15,001 and $50,000 worth of shares in Digital World Acquisition Corp. The disclosure was first noted by Congresstrading.com, which tracks stock purchases made by members of the House and Senate.

Digital World, a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, merged with the former president's company, Trump Media & Technology Group, earlier this month. After going public, Digital World's stock price surged as much as 1,200%. The shares traded at about $70 a on Thursday, valuing the company at $2.6 billion.

A self-proclaimed Trump supporter, Greene has not said what spurred her investment in Digital World. "This transaction was reported in compliance with House rules and provides all required details about the transaction," her office said in an emailed statement to CBS MoneyWatch.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/marjorie-g ... l-georgia/

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene bought up to $50,000 worth of shares in Trump SPAC

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Green is one investor who appears to have faith in the newly formed company backing former President Donald Trump's social media venture.

Trump SPAC slumps after wild week of trading

By Rob McLean and Jill Disis, CNN Business
Updated 2034 GMT (0434 HKT) October 26, 2021

New York / Hong Kong (CNN Business)The shell company that plans to merge with former US President Donald Trump's new media firm is losing some steam after last week's trading bonanza.

Shares of Digital World Acquisition Corp. plunged nearly 30% Tuesday after falling 11% on Monday.

Digital World Acquisition Corp. skyrocketed by as much as 1,657% last week after Trump announced on Wednesday a deal to list Trump Media & Technology Group through what's known as a SPAC, or a Special Purpose Acquisition Company.




https://edition.cnn.com/2021/10/26/inve ... index.html

Trump SPAC deal leads to fraud lawsuit
Dan Primack

Private equity investor Brian Shevland is suing the CEO of the blank check company that it merging with former President Trump's social media platform, claiming a "brazen act of fraud."

Big picture: The lawsuit comes just a week after Digital World Acquisition Corp. (DWAC), led by Patrick Orlando, disclosed that it's under investigation by federal securities regulators. It also comes several months before Trump's company is slated to launch its first public products.

Shevland was an early director nominee of DWAC, but claims in his lawsuit that he was removed by Orlando without warning or notification — a move that denied him thousands of shares and the ability to buy more stock at a very low price.

For example, one remedy proposed by Shevland is for him to be able to buy shares at $0.003 a piece, compared to the SPAC IPO price of $10 and the current market price of $51.33.

The intrigue: The complaint suggests that conversations between Orlando and Trump began months before DWAC went public, which could violate federal securities law.

It also said that DWAC originally planned to pass on the Trump deal "due to opposition from board members who rejected an affiliation with former President Trump for personal reasons."

Shevland, the complaint says, supported the transaction.



https://www.axios.com/trump-spac-deal-f ... 3caac.html

neeneko wrote: ↑Wed Dec 22, 2021 3:17 pm So.. he is not suing it for being a pump and dump, he just wants in?

Trump’s newest business partner: A Chinese firm with a history of SEC investigations
Shanghai-based Arc Capital, an investment firm that has been the target of probes by securities regulators, is at the center of the deal to take Trump’s media venture public.

By Douglas MacMillan and Jonathan O'Connell
December 23, 2021 at 11:25 a.m. EST

A Chinese firm helping former president Donald Trump take his new media company public has been the target of investigations by federal securities regulators, who say the firm misrepresented shell companies with no products and few employees as ambitious, growing enterprises, documents and interviews show.

Arc Capital, an investment advisory firm based in Shanghai, has repeatedly helped create or finance companies with little or no revenue, no customers and office locations that point to P.O. boxes, according to a Washington Post review of regulatory and court filings. One claimed to be developing autonomous drone software despite having no employees; another said it operated a publicly traded in-home bakery “specializing in freshly-made cakes and cupcakes” before saying it pivoted into touch-screen technologies for a “diversified blue-chip client base,” regulatory filings show.

The United States allows shell companies to be listed on public markets but requires operators to truthfully represent them as businesses with no active operations, securities lawyers said. The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has accused Arc of deceiving investors about the scope of its operations, the locations of the businesses and the identities of the people behind them, documents show.

This year, Arc helped create Digital World Acquisition, an investment vehicle that has raised over $1.2 billion to conduct a merger with Trump Media and Technology Group. Digital World is what’s known as a special purpose acquisition company, or SPAC, a type of shell business that raises money from investors to acquire a private start-up with strong growth prospects. The deal, which still must be approved by shareholders and regulators, has the potential to enrich the former president and turn his nascent social media start-up into a public company overnight.



https://www.washingtonpost.com/business ... -deal-sec/

Flatpoint High wrote: ↑Mon Dec 27, 2021 3:58 pm could it be money laundering? Say it ain't so!