Trump lashes out at Nasdaq over routine trading halt of Truth Social

CNN
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Former President Donald Trump lashed out at Nasdaq over a routine trading halt in shares of his social media company and even threatened to move the listing to the New York Stock Exchange.

“Why is NASDAQ halting the sale of DJT?” Trump said Friday on Truth Social, referring to the ticker symbol of Truth Social owner Trump Media & Technology Group. “What right do they have to do this? They have done it twice today. What’s going on?”

Trump suggested Nasdaq was “taking orders from the SEC,” an agency he accused of delaying Trump Media’s merger “for political reasons.”

What happened is Trump Media’s stock, which trades on the Nasdaq Composite, skyrocketed on Friday, after Trump himself made very big news: He announced he won’t be selling shares in the company.

That spike was so big that it triggered two five-minute trading pauses designed to provide a cooling period.

Such trading halts are routine and happen dozens of times a day for various stocks.

For Trump Media (DJT), the first halt occurred at 2:26 p.m. ET and was lifted at 2:31 p.m. ET, according to Nasdaq’s website. That was just minutes after Trump announced during a press conference he is “not selling” shares in the company. That comment lifted the stock 25%.

The stock resumed trading before it was halted again at 2:34 p.m. ET for another five-minute halt.

A Nasdaq spokesperson told CNN on Saturday that “single-stock trading pauses, also known as ‘Limit up/Limit down,’ are SEC-mandated market-wide mechanisms deployed across all US exchanges, designed to protect both companies and investors and minimize excess volatility in a single stock or the wider market.”

Joe Saluzzi, a market structure expert and co-founder of Themis Trading, told CNN in an email Saturday that “these types of halts are very common” and noted that such halts are mandated by federal regulators and have been in place since 2013 across the entire US exchange listed stock market.

“So, Mr. Trump’s threat about moving his stock from Nasdaq to NYSE would have no effect since both Nasdaq and NYSE both follow the same SEC rules,” he said.

Even though all of this appeared to be routine, Trump threatened to punish Nasdaq.

“I am going to hold NASDAQ, and maybe the SEC, liable for doing what they are doing,” he said in his Truth Social post. “If they do it again, we will move the stock to the New York Stock Exchange.”

Nasdaq did not respond to CNN’s request for comment.