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The deals in two lesser known New York-listed stocks surged a few weeks before the company announced it would be appointed to Trump’s Family Advisory Committee.
According to an analysis by the Financial Times, in the four weeks leading up to the November 27 disclosure of Donald Trump JR’s recruitment, stocks in the rare machine, a drone maker listed on Nasdaq last year, have almost tripled.
Shares in Dominali Holdings, a securities and fintech group headquartered in Trump Tower in New York, rose 580% six weeks before February 11th, revealing that Trump JR and another son of President Donald Trump, Eric Trump, has joined the advisory committee.
Regulatory experts said the timing and scale of movements that appear to be unrelated to revenue reports and other publications for this period were “clearly unusual.” Both shares brought even greater profits after the appointment was announced.
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“The dramatic moves before the same dramatic announcement suggest that this was not a sealed event,” said Bill Singer, a lawyer and former regulatory lawyer for the U.S. Stock Exchange.
The average daily trading volume for a rare machine with a market value of around $90 million rose to 290,000 shares in four weeks, up from just 93,000 between March and October 2024.
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The disclosure reveals that the two Trump brothers each had been given Dominari 966,000 shares worth 6.7% of the company before the announcement of their role.
The unusual machine filed in November revealed that Trump JR issued 200,000 shares and purchased 131,000 shares under a “restricted stock unit agreement and advisory agreement.”
In the same filing, the unusual machinery “relies heavily on Chinese imports,” highlighting “political unrest that will affect (it) relationship with China and affect future tariffs” as a risk to future operations.
The unusual machine said Trump JR’s knowledge of planned involvement is limited to three senior officers, their board and lawyers. It said “there is no reason to believe that any of these people violated their obligations, whether legal or fiduciary,” and the company “doesn’t know why the investors bought (that) stocks during this period.”
Last year, the first public call for the rare machine was accepted by Dominari.
Dominari did not respond to requests for comment.
A Trump JR spokesman did not respond to requests for comment. Eric Trump did not respond to requests for comment through the Trump organization.
Adam Pritchard, a law professor at the University of Michigan, described the stock price movement as “clearly unusual.” However, he added: “I don’t follow that it’s insider trading. As a board advisor, Donald Trump Jr. is not necessarily an obligation not to trade information, as the board directors usually do.”
The unusual machine “has no reason to believe Don Jr. violated his NDA (a private agreement).” Dominari did not respond to a request for comment on whether Trump JR or Eric Trump had imposed such terms.
The shares in both companies are currently below levels just before Trump JR’s appointments were made public, but above levels a year ago.
News of trading activities come amid scrutiny of potential conflicts of interest involving the president’s family, who have long maintained business relationships while engaging in political life.
In October 2021, the announcement of a planned merger between Trump Media & Technology Group, owned by Trump JR and running the social media site Truth Social, Blank-Cheque Company Digital World Acquisition Corp, attracted regulatory attention when trading volumes surged the night before the deal was announced.
Additional Reports by Criskook
