By Jack Pitcher
Stocks and cryptocurrencies linked to President Trump are in a deep slump, leaving some of the president's biggest fans with steep losses.
Shares of Trump Media & Technology Group, which operates the president's Truth Social platform, have tumbled 75% since Trump's inauguration. Digital "meme coins" named for Trump and first lady Melania Trump are down 86% and 99% since inauguration day, respectively. And one of the Trump family's crypto ventures, a token called World Liberty Financial, has dropped roughly 40% since its September launch.
President Trump's 2024 campaign inspired a wider investment thesis, with pro and amateur traders alike piling into areas such as healthcare and prison stocks as well as cryptocurrencies -- assets they expected to fare well during a second Trump administration. But one year into the president's return to the White House, some of the so-called Trump trades have struggled.
The turnabout has been particularly stark with stocks and digital tokens with direct associations to the president and his family. They have been hit hard by a broader slump affecting the priciest and most-speculative corners of the market -- from bitcoin to AI darlings such as CoreWeave.
Trump stocks benefited from expectations that the incoming administration would usher in an era of deregulation, tax cuts and supportive crypto policies -- and that assets tied directly to Trump and his family would continue to rally. With the president's return to the White House, though, his policies on global trade have upended some of those bets now that investors are paying more attention to the performance of those companies than to his political future.
DJT, for example, trades at 1,240 times its annual revenues, according to FactSet. And the Trump family's various crypto businesses, including World Liberty Financial and American Bitcoin, have been swept up in a recent drop in cryptocurrencies.
One of many users discussing the stock on Reddit investing forums last month self-identified as a "DJT bag holder" who bought at $46 a share. The stock is now trading at $11.07. "When do I give up on this and move on?" user SimpleMindHatter asked.
But the damage isn't limited to Trump's financial world. DJT is just one of the many meme stocks to get hit hard in recent weeks while speculative fervor has cooled off.
"This is a healthy recalibration following a speculative frenzy," said Nick Giorgi, chief equity strategist at Alpine Macro, adding that baskets tracking meme stocks, individual investor favorites, unprofitable tech companies and momentum stocks have all been hit hard over the past month.
Next week, investors will get a look at the Federal Reserve's preferred inflation gauge, the personal-consumption expenditures price index. Traders are overwhelmingly betting that the central bank will cut interest rates at its December meeting following recent comments from Fed officials, and expectations of lower rates have helped calm nerves around stocks.
S&P 500 volatility has spiked this fall, with investors scrutinizing the valuations of some of the biggest tech firms, but the large-cap index has been resilient, bouncing back from every selloff to sit less than 2% below record highs on Wednesday.
Sentiment in the riskiest corners of the market appears to be turning, however. A Goldman Sachs basket of nonprofitable technology companies dropped 21% from its mid-October peak through Nov. 21, after soaring earlier in the year.
As for the broader Trump trades, the results have been mixed.
Many of the stock sector trades have worked as investors hoped: Healthcare stocks are up, European defense stocks went on a tear, clean-energy companies are hurting and big Wall Street banks such as Goldman Sachs have performed well.
Regional banks have lagged behind, however, amid worries about a slowing economy and weakening credit conditions, and the biggest private prison stocks are down big in 2025 after getting a postelection bump.
Bitcoin had a strong run, before a brutal selloff began in October. It is down 30% in less than two months. The crypto selloff is hitting various parts of a Trump empire that has become deeply entangled with the industry. It has also caught Wall Street's attention, though the damage doesn't look to be spilling into other assets.
"While those folks concentrated in the assets are feeling a lot of pain, the macro implications look pretty minimal," said Bob Elliott, chief executive of Unlimited Funds.
Selling longer-dated Treasurys has been a decent bet, as deficit concerns have kept yields elevated despite uncertainty around longer-term economic growth. The dollar has broadly weakened, in part because planned tax cuts and other policies are fueling fears about deficit spending.
Gold, meanwhile, has been on a tear. Investors worried about the future of the dollar or simply looking for a hedge against turbulence have piled into the precious metal, sending prices to numerous records this year. Gold is trading around $4,200 a troy ounce, up almost 60% on the year and not far below all-time highs hit in October.
Write to Jack Pitcher at jack.pitcher@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
November 29, 2025 05:30 ET (10:30 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2025 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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