Trading in Dominari Holdings Inc. soared ahead of the February announcement that Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump had taken stakes in the company and joined its advisory board—an increase some securities law experts called “suspicious.”
President Donald Trump's sons Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump attended the first day of the 2024 ... [+]
Between Feb. 12 and Dec. 29, 2024, trading in Dominari Holdings—a Nasdaq-listed firm that specializes in wealth management, investment banking, sales and trading, asset management and capital investment—averaged 11,500 shares a day, never exceeding 71,000 shares, with a price range of $1.10 to $3.20.
On Dec. 30, trading shot up to 358,000 shares, kicking off a surge that saw daily volume average 1.2 million shares a day through Feb. 10, 2025—when it skyrocketed to 23.7 million shares—as the stock price climbed from $0.83 to $6.50.
On Feb. 11, an hour before markets opened, Dominari Holdings announced that Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump had joined its advisory board and acquired an undisclosed amount of shares in the company, sending the stock to a 52-week high of $11.33.
The price peaked at $13.58 two days later but has since fallen, closing at $6.74 on Tuesday.
Donald Trump Jr., Eric Trump and spokespeople for Dominari Holdings did not respond to inquiries.
“It [the trading volume] is super suspicious,” said Alan Palmiter, a professor at Wake Forest University who specializes in corporate law and securities regulation. “It seems that there were those who had figured out what was going to happen well before the press release about the Trumps coming on.”
It’s unclear. On Dec. 20, four days before the trading volume started to spike, Dominari Holdings informed the Securities and Exchange Commission that Ron Lieberman, an executive vice president with the Trump Organization, had joined its board of directors. That filing, though, made no mention of either of the Trumps.
During the surge, between Dec. 30 and Feb. 10, the company’s filings with the SEC provided little new information beyond registering 1.2 million shares of common stock for incentives and awarding 310,000 shares each to its CEO and president as compensation. “Nothing in [Dominari Holdings’ Securities and Exchange Commission]
Outside of filings, Dominari Holdings issued press releases about a subsidiary's involvement in underwriting two other firms’ modest initial public offerings, while Dominari Holding’s president, Kyle Wool, continued making appearances on Fox Business’s “Varney & Co.,” providing some media exposure. Searches on Google, Nexis, Reddit and Twitter yielded little beyond pieces about the stock price and a mild interest in its $476,000 stake in defense contractor Anduril, a private company.
3,273,705. That was Dominari Holdings’ trading volume for all of 2024, just one-seventh of its volume on Feb. 10, the day before the Trumps’ involvement was announced.
Regulators—including Nasdaq, the SEC and the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority—could choose to investigate the trading surge. Those agencies have sophisticated tools to detect irregularities before major announcements. Should they decide to launch an inquiry, the SEC and FINRA can issue subpoenas to compel documents or testimony, including the identities of buyers and any ties to company insiders. The SEC is prohibited by law, though, from disclosing whether or not it is conducting an investigation, unless it becomes a matter of public record via a commission or court proceeding. FINRA and NASDAQ have similar confidentiality practices.
A week after Dominari Holdings announced the Trumps’ involvement, the company launched a new venture with Donald Trump Jr. and Eric Trump “to address the growing demand for high-performance computing infrastructure.” The independent firm, American Data Centers, Inc., gives the president’s sons a new potential opportunity to profit from government-backed industry growth, as their father has pledged to expand the country’s artificial intelligence infrastructure and ease industry regulations.
Dominari Holdings is headquartered in Trump Tower. The company appears to pay the Trump Organization $747,000 in annual rent, reported independent journalist Wendy Siegelman, citing an SEC filing.
In November 2024, Forbes estimated Donald Trump Jr.’s net worth at $50 million, while valuing Eric Trump at approximately $40 million.
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