As shares of the “Trump SPAC” get pushed to eye-popping levels, the “meme stocks” that were all the rage on Reddit this spring could be collateral damage, sources told On The Money.
Shares of Digital World Acquisition Corp. were trading at less than $10 before it announced its deal with Donald Trump’s incipient media and technology group TMTG. They surged to more than $144 at one point Friday and closed on Monday at $83.85.
GameStop shares, which wrote the book on that kind of wild behavior, quietly slid to close on Friday at $173.97 after closing at $184.44 on Wednesday. Likewise, AMC fell from its Wednesday close of $40.87 to end Monday at $36.83.
“DWAC is hot — people that follow and trade meme stocks are piling into or out of the hottest thing in the moment,” Ian Rosen, former Stock Twits CEO told The Post. “Currently that’s DWAC so it’s not hard to believe it’s taken some of the focus of these traders.”
DWAC on Monday was the second most mentioned stock on Reddit’s WallStreetBets forum behind Tesla, while GameStop was sixth. AMC fell off the list.
“You have retail people who always want to be in the next big thing — even if that means selling their AMC or GME,” Tim Anderson managing director at TJM Investments told The Post.
As meme stocks take a hit, downloads of retail trading apps like Robinhood, Fidelity and E*Trade are getting a “Trump bump,” according to data from Apptopia.
Since June, Robinhood has been averaging approximately 20,000 downloads a day. In the days following the Trump SPAC announcement, Robinhood downloads averaged 30,000 a day, up from an average of 20,000 since June.
“It was the most amount of downloads for Robinhood in four months,” Adam Blacker of Apptopia told The Post.
“Speculation is entertainment — and Robinhood is the tool people including me love to speculate on,” Howard Linzdon, an early investor in Robinhood, told The Post.
Robinhood declined to comment. The company will report third-quarter earnings on Tuesday.