Shares in Trump’s Truth Social fall to record low following presidential debate
Win McNamee/Getty Images
(NEW YORK) — Shares in former President Donald Trump’s social media company fell to a record low Wednesday on the heels of Tuesday’s presidential debate, which a CNN poll indicated was won by Vice President Kamala Harris.
Shares of Trump Media & Technology Group, the parent company of Truth Social, closed down 10.5% Wednesday to end the day at a record low.
Shared dipped as much as 17% Wednesday before slightly improving at the close of trading.
For some investors, Trump Media serves as a bellwether for the former president’s odds in the upcoming presidential election. When Trump was convicted on 34 felony counts in New York in May, the company’s stock price tumbled — but the stock surged in the days following the July presidential debate and the assassination attempt on the former president.
Analysts have said that the company’s stock performance is removed from the financial outlook of the company, which reported losing more than $16 million over a three-month period ending in June during which it only brought in $836,000 in revenue.
The stock price has been buoyed by a number of passionate individual investors who bought shares in the company to support Trump or because they believe in the company’s mission.
Next week, Trump faces a pivotal choice about his investment in the company. The lockup provision that barred him from selling his shares for the first six months since the company went public expires next week, meaning that Trump could begin selling his shares in the company as early as Sept. 19.
According to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Trump owns approximately 115 million shares of the company, which are worth nearly $2 billion based on Wednesday’s stock price.
On paper, Trump has lost more than $4 billion in his stake over the last six months as the company’s stock price has declined.
A representative for Trump Media & Technology Group did not immediately respond to a request for comment from ABC News.
(NEW YORK) — This summer brought lots of buzz around “tourist taxes” and other fees that can get tacked on to normal travel expenses. Now, another fee that may be familiar to avid cruisers is increasing on one major cruise line.
The so-called “Crew Appreciation” fee is a daily amount that’s automatically added to a guests’ onboard accounts with Princess Cruises “to recognize the efforts of a wide variety of crewmembers who contribute to the experiences of all our guests” and are pooled and distributed throughout the year in compensation and bonuses.
Travelers will pay slightly more starting later this month depending on the type of accommodations they book, according to the cruise line, which last raised the price in February 2023.
Echoing recent headlines surrounding updates to airline baggage prices, Princess Cruises’ Crew Appreciation fee is rising by just $1 per person, per day in various classes of cabins.
Travelers in suites will see a $19 daily fee, while those in mini suites, cabanas or Club Classes will pay $18. Guests in all other staterooms will pay $17.
“The crewmembers eligible to receive these funds work in various departments, many of whom rotate among different ships, throughout our fleet of ships,” Princess states on its website. “Guests have complete discretion to adjust these crew appreciation [fees] while onboard; however, crew appreciation may only be adjusted prior to disembarking the ship and not refundable post cruise.”
Travelers can choose a prepaid crew appreciation option while managing their booking, but if it’s not adjusted up to the time a passenger settles up the account prior to disembarkation, the payment becomes final and nonrefundable.
Full details of the policy are available on the Princess Cruises website.
(SEATTLE) — Tens of thousands of striking Boeing machinists are casting ballots on Monday over whether to approve a contract offer that could end their work stoppage after seven weeks.
The new offer delivers higher pay increases and a bolstered ratification bonus that would deliver each worker $12,000 if the union approves the deal, according to the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM), the union representing 33,000 Boeing workers in Washington, Oregon and California.
The ongoing standoff has strained the finances of both sides. Union members have received $250 per week from a strike fund, beginning in the third week of the work stoppage. That compensation marks a major pay cut for many of the employees.
Boeing and its shareholders have lost about $5.5 billion since the strike began in September, according to an estimate last month from the Anderson Economic Group. Shares of Boeing have plummeted 40% this year but have ticked up slightly over the past month.
Union members resoundingly defeated two previous proposals from Boeing, but the latest offer marks the best deal the workforce is likely to receive, the union said in a public letter to membership on Saturday.
“This is truly the time to lock in these gains and work to build more in future negotiations,” IAM President Jon Holden and the union’s negotiating committee told members. “Allow yourself to capture this win and be proud of your sacrifice.”
The proposed contract would deliver a 38% raise over the four-year duration of the contract, upping the 35% cumulative raise provided in a previous offer overwhelmingly rejected by workers in a vote two weeks ago. Workers had initially sought a 40% cumulative pay increase.
The proposal also calls for hiking Boeing’s contribution to a 401(k) plan, but it declines to fulfill workers’ call for a reinstatement of the company’s defined pension. Workers lost a traditional pension plan in a contract ratified by the union in 2014.
Nearly two thirds of union members rejected the most recent contract offer in a vote last month. The outcome followed the overwhelming defeat of a previous proposal in September, which drew rebuke from more than 90% of union members.
“It’s time we all come back together and focus on rebuilding the business and delivering the world’s best airplanes,” Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg wrote in a memo to employees on Friday. “There are a lot of people depending on us.”
It will take a majority vote of union members to approve the contract offer. If workers ratify the deal, they can return to work as early as Wednesday, the union said.
“The decision to end this strike is right where it needs to be — in the membership’s hands,” Holden and the negotiating committee said in their public letter.
(WASHINGTON) — Former President Donald Trump has proposed tariffs as the solution for a host of perceived ills: the decline of U.S. manufacturing, the arrival of undocumented immigrants and the costs of childcare, among others.
“To me, the most beautiful word in the dictionary is ‘tariff,'” Trump said this week during an appearance at the Economic Club of Chicago.
On the campaign trail, Trump has rarely mentioned the threat of a potential trade war, in which foreign nations could respond to tariffs by slapping U.S. imports with taxes of their own.
Economists who spoke to ABC News said Trump’s tariff proposals would all but certainly trigger a global trade war, diminishing sales for U.S. exporters, which account for about 10% of the nation’s economy. The disruption would likely trigger job cuts and slow the nation’s economic performance, economists added.
On the other hand, the move would bring more of the supply chain back to U.S. soil, economists said, and it would likely spur growth and hiring at some firms by protecting them from foreign competition. But the same experts cautioned that such benefits would be far outweighed by the consequences.
“The essence of a trade war is you impose tariffs and other countries respond by putting high tariffs on your exports. It’s tit for tat,” Douglas Irwin, a professor of economics at Dartmouth College who specializes in the history of U.S. trade policy, told ABC News.
“Tariffs are easy to impose but hard to remove,” Irwin added.
In response to ABC News’ request for comment, the Trump campaign pointed to a series of statements about tariffs made by Trump and his allies, including remarks from Trump Campaign Senior Advisor Brian Hughes.
“Time warp alert! Just like 2016, Wall Street and so-called expert forecasts said that Trump policies would result in lower growth and higher inflation, the media took these forecasts at face value, and the record was never corrected when actual growth and job gains widely outperformed these opinions,” Hughes said.
“These Wall Street elites would be wise to review the record and acknowledge the shortcomings of their past work if they’d like their new forecasts to be seen as credible,” he added.
On the campaign trail, Trump has promised a sharp escalation of tariffs during his first term. He has proposed tariffs of between 60% and 100% on Chinese goods.
Envisioning a far-reaching policy, Trump has proposed a tax of between 10% and 20% on all imported products. On Tuesday, he told the audience at the Economic Club of Chicago that such a tariff could reach as high as 50%.
Economists widely expect that tariffs of this magnitude would increase prices paid by U.S. shoppers, since importers typically pass along the cost of higher taxes to consumers. Trump’s tariffs would cost the typical U.S. household about $2,600 per year, according to an estimate from the Peterson Institute for International Economics.
Meanwhile, there could be a second wave of consequences if foreign countries were to impose retaliatory tariffs, economists said.
“You might see a dramatic decrease in U.S. exports, which could then have employment effects for people working in those sectors,” Kara Reynolds, an economist at American University, told ABC News. She pointed to the manufacturing and farming as industries especially vulnerable to a trade war.
For evidence of such an outcome, one need look no further than Trump’s first term, during which a slew of tariffs often induced a retaliatory response.
Tariffs imposed during Trump’s first term often induced retaliatory tariffs. The European Union and Canada responded to tariffs on steel and aluminum with tariffs of their own. Trump slapped tariffs on about $360 billion worth of Chinese goods, but China responded with tariffs on tens of billions of dollars worth of U.S exports.
Chinese tariffs on U.S. soybean exports caused a steep decline in sales to Chinese customers, dropping exports from $12.3 billion in 2017 to $3.1 billion in 2018, according to the Georgetown University Journal of International Affairs. In response, the Trump administration paid billions of dollars in direct aid to farmers to make up for the losses.
“He felt obligated to bail out the farmers,” Robert Lawrence, a professor of trade and investment at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, told ABC News. “Now, we’re talking about potential actions on a much grander scale.”
Alongside retaliatory tariffs, many countries would seek suppliers in places where such tariffs are not on the books, Lawrence added.
“Trump is likely to isolate the U.S. and drive other countries to do business with each other,” Lawrence said. “This would have a very adverse effect.”
On the campaign trail, Trump has sharply disagreed with such fears, saying large-scale tariffs would rejuvenate U.S. manufacturing and propel economic growth.
At the Chicago Economic Club on Tuesday, Trump said tariffs would force companies to locate factories in the U.S. as a way of circumventing the tariffs, which in turn would boost domestic production and employment.
“We’re going to have thousands of companies coming into this country,” Trump said. “We’re going to grow it like it’s never grown before, and we’re going to protect them when they come in because we’re not going to have somebody undercut them.”
Economists said higher tariffs could expand certain areas of U.S. manufacturing that face stiff competition from abroad, but the policy also risks raising input costs and slowing output at U.S. producers that import their raw materials.
Trump’s tariffs decreased U.S. employment by 166,000 jobs, according to a study from the nonprofit Tax Foundation, which cited an increase in import costs for U.S. employers. A separate study from the U.S.-China Business Council estimated up to nearly 250,000 lost jobs as a result of the tariffs.
“It certainly would make the U.S. more self-reliant, but it would come with far greater costs,” Lawrence said.
