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Trump Media Launches MAGA-Friendly Investment Funds

New York Times Business •
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President Trump has cemented himself in American culture by putting his name on everything from office towers to passports. Now Mr. Trump’s brand is hitting Wall Street trading floors, too. The Trump Media & Technology Group, which counts Mr. Trump as the largest shareholder, has introduced exchange-traded investment funds carrying the brand of his social media platform, Truth Social.

The company’s goal is to pitch the funds, which are baskets of individual stocks, to investors who share Mr. Trump’s worldview. The funds began rolling out earlier this year. We are here to talk about American superiority, said Steve Neamtz, chief executive of Yorkville America, an investment firm in New Jersey with close ties to Trump Media that is managing the funds. Mr. Neamtz said the Truth Social funds were focused on companies in sectors critical to the American economy, like energy and security, while avoiding stocks of companies that are seen as promoting social causes at the expense of profits.

The Truth Social basket of E. T. F.s all have a decidedly America First aura.

The five newly launched funds have names like Truth Social American Icons, Truth Social American Security & Defense and Truth Social American Energy Security. Companies that the funds own shares in include Home Depot, Uber, Lockheed Martin, Crowd Strike, Exxon Mobil, Walmart and Chevron. Yorkville recently acquired two older E.

T. F.s with a strong conservative bent and rebranded them as Truth Social funds. One of those is Truth Social America First, which trades under the MAGA stock symbol.

And the other is Truth Social God Bless America, which trades under the symbol YALL. E. T.

F.s, which have been around for decades, are a popular way for investors to get exposure to stocks without having to be their own stock pickers. The funds themselves trade on stock exchanges. The E.

T. F. market is huge, with $24 trillion in assets, and is dominated by big money-management firms like Black Rock, Vanguard and State Street. The Truth Social funds are entering the market with about $150 million in combined assets.

Much of the assets come from the two already established ET Fs that Trump Media acquired. The newly-minted Truth Social funds each have fewer than $10 million in assets and generally trade just a few thousand shares a day — an indication of limited demand. Even with the help of the Trump brand, some market analysts said it might be hard for the new offerings to find buyers.

The funds also will be competing for investor dollars with E. T. F.s from Strive Asset Management, a $3 billion investment firm that rose to prominence by claiming its goal was to depoliticize corporate America and oppose so-called woke investing.

Strive was co-founded by Vivek Ramaswamy, who is the Republican candidate for governor of Ohio. It’s a challenge to break through when your difference is connected to politics, said Todd Rosenbluth, who is head of research at TMX Vetta Fi, a financial data firm, and a longtime analyst of the E. T.

F. market. Most investors, he said, tend not to invest based on their political leanings and are mainly looking for funds with a history of generating solid returns. It is unclear just how much of a revenue maker the seven funds will be for Trump Media, which does not have any role in managing or selecting the stocks.

The company is licensing the Truth Social name to Yorkville, which is managing the funds, for an unspecified amount, according to regulatory filings. Mr. Neamtz and a Trump Media spokesman declined to discuss the licensing arrangement. Adam Curran, a money manager in Charleston, S. C., said he had merged his God Bless America fund with Truth Social because he had grown weary of having to market the fund, which he founded in 2022.