Former US President Donald Trump’s media company debuted on the New York Stock Exchange on Tuesday, the first day of trading, under the initials DJT, the initials of the future Republican presidential candidate, AFP reported.

Shares of DJT, owned by Trump Media and Technology Group (TMTG), the company that owns the social network Truth Social, rose 16.10% to $57.99, although the closing price was well below the level reached during the meeting.

“I love Truth Social, I love truth,” Donald Trump said of his 2022 network on Tuesday as he hailed the success of Nasdaq shares.

Shortly after the opening of the trading session on Wall Street, DJT shares, which are in high demand, were suspended for a few minutes before recovering.

On paper, it is valued at about $4.5 billion

On Friday, the general meeting of Digital World Acquisition Corp (DWAC), a publicly traded SPAC, voted to merge with TMTG, a Trump company.

The main shareholder of TMTG is Donald Trump, who will control several tens of millions of shares of the newly-listed company.

Some estimates put his stake at about $4.5 billion on paper, including stock value.

However, several analysts have questioned the validity of this estimate.

According to CNN, in the first nine months of 2023, Trump Media brought in just $3.4 million in sales and lost $49 million.

By comparison, social network Reddit (up 8.88% to $65.11), which also just went public on Wall Street, was valued at more than $9 billion on Tuesday, with sales of more than $800 million.

Analysts are dampening enthusiasm

Steve Sosnick, chief strategist at Interactive Brokers ( IBKR ), believes the stock market’s enthusiasm for these new stocks is similar to the movement that has affected “meme stocks,” viral stocks that generate speculation among stock traders.

“In the case of DJT, the action is politically motivated,” the analyst noted in a note.

“It is not absurd to believe that a large number of followers” of Donald Trump’s MAGA (Make America Great Again) movement “are voting with their wallets for the candidate of their choice.”

On paper, however, this initial public offering provides a breath of fresh financial air for Donald Trump, whose finances have faltered and who is being harassed from several quarters.

However, the agreement between TMTG and DWAC provides for a six-month lock-up period during which existing shareholders cannot sell their shares in the market.

A New York judge eased financial pressure on the Republican presidential candidate on Monday by lowering his bond in a civil case to $175 million, but refused to postpone a historic criminal trial that was set to begin on April 15.