"Truth" Social stock down over 30% since a certain verdict was handed down

That stock price just keeps sliding and is now trading at just above $30 a share, less than half its peak in the middle of April.

And here's the killer, which makes me wonder if anyone who has bought this stock has ever looked at its P&L statement, it lost over $300 mill with revenue of less than $1 mill!

Now, most people would see those numbers and say 'This is not a viable company, no matter how you look at it' and steer clear of it. But I guess when you're so deeply immersed in distorting reality, it doesn't really matter.

One of their problems is that they no longer have an exclusive on the utterances of a certain Felonious Candidate for High Office. He used to be under a contract that he had to post to Truth Social before any other platform, that contract has lapsed. He's now rejoined Twitter and is spewing forth there first.

Naturally the management of Truth Social is blaming "naked short-sellers", a practice of buying stock for short-selling without putting up the purchase price first, i.e. no money is involved in the transaction. They have sent letters to the boards of trade complaining of this, there has been no evidence unearthed proving this claim. Sort of like some other law suits that came forth not quite four years ago, eh?

https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2024/06/18/djt-trump-media-stock-price-falling/74141641007/

Boeing/Airbus fishy titanium? Came from a Chinese state-run supplier.

Sadly, the article may be paywalled and I haven't found an alternative yet. I'll update with a new link if I find another source.

From the article, "A memo from a distributor of the suspect metal, Titanium International Group (TIG), states that the Italian company bought it from AVIC Shaanxi Hongyuan Aviation Forging Co. (HYFC), a subsidiary of Aviation Industry Corporation of China. And a letter to suppliers from the Italian aerospace and defense company Leonardo says that TIG told Italian authorities that the company can’t verify the origins of titanium sourced from HYFC as far back as 2016."

The pervasiveness of the questionable metal is wider than just Boeing and Airbus, TIG has also sold to helicopter makers. While there has been evidence of corrosion, there have been no reported crashes due to it, at least as of yet.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeremybogaisky/2024/06/18/a-chinese-state-company-supplied-suspect-titanium-used-in-boeing-airbus-planes/

You may have heard about the wildfire near/in Ruidoso, NM

There was an article on the CNN site this morning.

There are two fires threatening/in Ruidoso, the South Fork Fire at 15,000 acres and the Salt Fire on the Mescalero reservation at 5500 acres, almost 21,000 acres involved at this time. In less than 48 hours.

They've shut off electricity in Ruidoso and ordered a complete evacuation of the village and the surrounding areas, people are being told to not attempt to save their properties or possessions. Over 500 buildings, including residences, have been damaged or lost. All roads in/out of Ruidoso except 70 leading to Roswell have been closed. With no power, there's no cell service.

This is basically about 40 miles or so more or less north of us in a straight line, but there's lots of mountain and valley between here and there and it would take a radical wind shift to send it in our direction. The wind is pretty solidly from the west this time of year.

Tomorrow I'm planning on taking water/Gaterade/etc to the reservation as it's accessible. As I left a doctor appointment this morning, I saw a plane flying across the valley, apparently towards the fire. It was towing a black round-appearing object, I believe it was probably a water bucket, I'm guessing they reloaded at the Alamogordo airport. Roswell had an Air Force and missile base back in the '40s, I don't know exactly when it closed down but it's been used as a refill point for water bombers for a number of years now. I expect it's quite busy and Alamogordo's a lot closer than Roswell, though I expect a former Air Force base to be larger than our little municipal.

An old friend of mine texted me to see if we were safe (second such text I received today) and told me about an RV fire that closed the interstate near them: RV had quite a stock of ammunition inside! I think about how many people have guns, how red this state is in the rural areas, and the odds of people stockpiling ammo and the potential danger it could represent to firefighters. *sigh*