(Reuters) – Shares of Trump Media & Technology Group rose as much as nearly 13% in premarket trading on Friday after President Joe Biden’s faltering performance against Republican rival Donald Trump at the first 2024 U.S. presidential debate.
Biden delivered a shaky, halting performance while Trump battered him with a series of often false attacks at the debate on Thursday, as the two oldest presidential candidates ever exchanged personal insults ahead of the November election.
“Investors are probably going to give Trump the benefit of the doubt given how positive he was for markets in his presidency,” said Ben Laidler, global markets strategist at digital brokerage eToro.
“If you’re looking for a real-time proxy of investor expectations for the result in November, they’re (Trump stocks) telling you that Trump is in pole position for this election, and he’s cemented his perceived lead last night.”
Shares of Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG), which owns Trump’s social media platform Truth Social, was last up 7.3% at $39.54, while software developer Phunware, which worked on Trump’s 2020 election campaign app, climbed 8.1% to $6.81.
Shares of video-sharing platform Rumble, popular with conservatives, edged up 0.5% to $5.7.
TMTG’s shares have jumped about 110% this year as Trump gained momentum in his bid to become the Republican candidate in the election. The stock however came under pressure earlier this month after a jury found Trump guilty of falsifying documents to cover up a payment to silence a porn star.
Trump owned 64.9% of TMTG as of June 10, which is worth about $6.5 billion as of last close.
He had vowed to stick exclusively with Truth Social after being banned by Twitter following the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol by his supporters.
However, Trump returned to social media platform X, formerly Twitter, months after his ban was reversed by new owner Elon Musk.
(Reporting by Sruthi Shankar and Pranav Kashyap in Bengaluru; Editing by Shounak Dasgupta)
