A handful of institutional investors bought large positions in former President Donald Trump’s media company in the second quarter ahead of the company’s inclusion in two Russell indexes, regulatory filings released on Wednesday showed.

Among the biggest purchasers of shares of Trump Media & Technology Group (DJT.O), opens new tab, the parent company of the Truth Social platform, were asset managers Vanguard, State Street and BlackRock, which are known for their passive investing businesses. Those include exchange traded funds that buy shares of companies included in a wide range of indexes that they track.

Vanguard Group initiated a new position with the purchase of nearly 2.9 million shares of Trump Media, with a market value of approximately $94.3 million at the end of the quarter, the filings showed. BlackRock initiated a new position with the purchase of nearly 2.2 million shares, while State Street initiated a new position with just over 440,000 shares.

  • FuglyDuck@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    it’s a way to legally bribe Trump.

    he creates a shit company, takes it public. Says its worth xyz million. or whatever. The dump in shares, and he sells the shares created to go public.

    Then they just let the shit company fail, and he makes bank.

    • lemmydripzdotz456@lemmy.world
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      3 months ago

      Are you saying that two of the most powerful financial institutions in the world would bribe the politician who does what the billionires want and has explicitly requested bribes in the past? Surely you’re not serious.

      • FuglyDuck@lemmy.world
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        3 months ago

        it’s interesting that they’re not just blackmailing whoever does get it.

        “We will ruin your economy, crash the markets, and make you look like an asshole.”

        • Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works
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          3 months ago

          Risky move when they could strip you of all your power if they wanted to.

          Oh yeah? Have fun doing all that with no phone access in Gitmo. It’s an official presidential act, with you threatening terrorism on the economy and all…

          • FuglyDuck@lemmy.world
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            3 months ago

            they own SCROTUS, so, like… they’re not afraid.

            also, if that happens everyone else in the market would tank it as well. hedgefunds have been doing economic terrorism for a long time “too big to fail” is economic terrorism.

              • Corkyskog@sh.itjust.works
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                3 months ago

                It’s also the enforcement arm of the government. If they just simply enforced the laws on the books they could probably arrest a bunch of people for the crimes they get away with daily. Nothing is special about bankers or fund managers, they can be replaced by other bankers or managers.

  • zabadoh@ani.social
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    3 months ago

    There’s nothing to see here.

    Index funds, such as those run by Vanguard, are required by their own policy to hold all the components of the stock index that they track, and DJT.O was added to a major index.

    The moment the company drops in value and falls out of the index is the same moment the index funds sell their holdings of it.

    BlackRock is a huge hedge fund though.

    The real batshit crazy part is that DJT.O was somehow deemed valuable enough to be included in an index despite having almost no revenue.

    The only thing keeping the stock value up is the MAGA crazies pumping their money into it, magically thinking it’ll become profitable and make them rich.

  • Optional@lemmy.world
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    3 months ago

    I’d hope they lose everything, but the millions they invested are rounding errors to them.