NXST Reddit Mentions | ChartExchange

**Not a political post, it's a backtest.** I analyzed every time the President or a White House official named a publicly traded company. Truth Social posts, speeches, press briefings, public remarks, press gaggles, etc. (basically any time Trump or his inner circle said anything publicly) and tied each one to what the stock did next. I pulled the whole thing together (1,005 mentions, 137 tickers, all of 2026 so far) to answer one question: does the most market-moving mouth on earth actually move tickers, and is there a tradable edge? Short answer, the one-off posts are mostly noise, but the scheduled events print. Full breakdown below.
**1. The actual trade: the defense-primes meeting.**
The strongest one-day cluster in the entire set wasn't a post, it was the [March 6 White House meeting](https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/116184185735585906) with the defense primes, where the companies reportedly agreed to "quadruple" production of advanced weapons. The basket ripped:
|Ticker|1-Day|30-Day|To today|
|:-|:-|:-|:-|
|NOC|**+39.0%**|\+27.0%|\+0.3%|
|LMT|\+24.5%|\+15.3%|−0.7%|
|LHX|\+18.8%|\+15.9%|\+0.9%|
|RTX|\+14.8%|\+6.7%|\+1.8%|
|HON|\+6.3%|\+3.4%|\+4.2%|
|BA|\+3.5%|−5.3%|\+3.8%|
The catch nobody mentions: look at the last column. The whole thing round-tripped within a month. This was a rip-and-fade, not a hold, if you bought the headline and diamond-handed it, you made roughly nothing. The pure-plays (NOC/LMT/LHX/RTX) caught the move; the diversified industrials (BA/HON) barely twitched.
And it's still live: [Reuters reported June 10](https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2026-06-10/white-house-to-meet-defense-firms-to-talk-about-ramping-up-production-sources) that a second meeting with the same group was being planned within the week (Iran + Ukraine drawdowns straining munitions stockpiles). The DB already logs a June 11 mention tying a $350B military bill to NOC/BA. If March is the template, the playbook is: trade the scheduled event, don't marry it.
**2. Attacks were mostly buyable. Getting yelled at ≈ free dip.**
Across the whole set, bullish mentions ran \~+1.9% median (to today) and bearish ones \~−1.6%. Tiny. The funny part is how often an attack did *nothing*:
* "I didn't like Exxon's response" (XOM) +22% over the next 30 days [\[Jan 11 gaggle\]](https://vimeo.com/video/1153440783).
* NYT got criticized 50+ times, it's the single most-mentioned ticker in the whole DB (67 mentions) and its median 30-day return after criticism is positive.
* Comcast (CMCSA), the "MSDNC" punching bag, ran +8% median 30-day after getting attacked.
Translation: the insults are noise. The market does not care.
**3. Praise can mark the top, not the bottom.**
The flip side. When the post was ["Congrats to Newsmax. Big numbers!"](https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/116142578355684475), NMAX did the opposite of moon:
|Ticker|Mention|1-Day|30-Day|
|:-|:-|:-|:-|
|NMAX|"Big numbers!" praise|−27.3%|−30.3%|
For small, sentiment-driven names, a shoutout can be a liquidity event, early bags getting dumped into the attention. (Funniest data point in the whole set, while we're here: the single worst-performing stock anyone in the White House kept name-dropping was DJT itself, \~−70% from those mentions. Make of that what you will.)
**4. The other clean setup: regulatory optionality (Nexstar–Tegna).**
In Feb the post flipped to backing the Nexstar-Tegna merger (["GET THAT DEAL DONE!"](https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/116030041948459285)). The reaction was lopsided in a way that actually teaches you something:
|Ticker|1-Day|5-Day|30-Day|
|:-|:-|:-|:-|
|NXST (acquirer)|\+35.4%|\+34.9%|\+41.8%|
|TGNA (target)|\+3.6%|\+3.7%|\+4.3%|
Normally the target pops in M&A. Here the acquirer moved \~10x more than the target because the deal hinges on the FCC lifting its 39%-of-households ownership cap, so the catalyst was repricing approval odds, not merger spread. That optionality lives in NXST. ([FCC Chair endorsed it days later.](https://www.cnbc.com/2026/02/07/trump-nexstar-tegna.html)) Same warning as defense, though NXST gave most of it back over the following months.
**5. Where the real money actually was: investment announcements, not stock picks.**
Only TWO of the 1,005 mentions are tagged actual stock recs (Deere and Intel). The fat returns clustered in onshoring/investment announcements:
* **INTC** \- the govt-stake saga: ["proud to be a Shareholder of Intel"](https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/115861537483492504), later claiming the US made ["$30B in 90 days"](https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/116490320065457761). Early govt-stake mentions tagged +147% to +190%.
* **DELL** \- 20 mentions, mostly thanking the Dells for funding "Trump Accounts" ([Jan 20 presser](https://vimeo.com/video/1156638596)). Tagged +170% to +264%.
**6. Bull-trap hall of fame:**
* **STLA** \- praised repeatedly for "tens of billions" in US plants −32% to −35%.
* **TSCO** \- CEO got an event shoutout −33%.
If the shoutout is vibes ("great company, building in America"), it's a coin flip at best. If it's a scheduled, approval-gated event, that's where the moves concentrate.
**By the numbers:** 902 of the mentions were the President himself. Most-named tickers are media + defense (NYT 67, NOC 63, WBD 60, FOX 57, BA 41). Mention mix: 217 product mentions, 211 criticisms, 129 investment announcements — basically as much hate as praise.
**TL;DR:** Getting attacked was usually survivable, sometimes a buyable dip (XOM +22%). Getting praised sometimes marked the top (NMAX −30%). One-off posts = noise. The edge was in scheduled, approval-gated catalysts, the defense meeting (+39% NOC, faded in a month), the Nexstar regulatory bet (+42% NXST, faded) which rip then mean-revert, so they trade better than they hold. Positions: none, I just like spreadsheets.
**Sources:**
* Data source: [WhiteHouseTicker.com](http://WhiteHouseTicker.com) (every figure above is pulled from it)
* Defense meeting (Mar 6): [Truth Social](https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/116184185735585906) · 2nd meeting: [Reuters/USNews](https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2026-06-10/white-house-to-meet-defense-firms-to-talk-about-ramping-up-production-sources)
* Newsmax praise: [Truth Social](https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/116142578355684475)
* Nexstar–Tegna: [Truth Social](https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/116030041948459285) · [CNBC/FCC context](https://www.cnbc.com/2026/02/07/trump-nexstar-tegna.html)
* Intel: ["Shareholder"](https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/115861537483492504) · ["$30B in 90 days"](https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/116490320065457761)
* Exxon: [Jan 11 gaggle (video)](https://vimeo.com/video/1153440783) · Dell: [Jan 20 presser (video)](https://vimeo.com/video/1156638596)