donald trump’s indictment by a manhattan grand jury has inflamed the former president and his followers that’s good news for the stocks of media companies serving his audience to judge from friday’s market action shares of digital world acquisition ticker dwac have fallen 75 in a year as the specialpurpose acquisition corporation struggles to close its merger with trump media  technology group but as donald trump appealed to his fans after thursday’s indictment over hushmoney payments shares of the spac jumped as much as 11 in friday morning trading broader market measures such as the sp 500 were up 1 friday the nation’s first criminal charges against a former president —alleging he paid hush money to a porn star on the eve of his 2016 election—evidently didn’t disturb traders attorneys for trump said friday that he committed no crime and vowed to fight the charges after his expected appearance in manhattan criminal court on tuesday on the truth social platform run by trump media the former president called the indictment “political persecution and election interference at the highest level in history” rumble rum another social media platform targeting a conservative audience saw its stock rise by a similar 11 friday although shares of the sarasota flabased company no doubt benefited because it reported strong revenue growth in the december quarter late on thursday by midday the two social media stocks had settled to gains of about 65 each with digital world at 1390 and rumble at 990 a prosecution of trump will also be fodder for broadcasts at fox news shares of the conservative news outlet’s parent company fox corp foxa were up 07 friday in line with the market citing early data from nielsen media research a network spokesman said ”during breaking news coverage of former president donald trump’s indictment fox news channel was the mostwatched cable news network” fox corp and dow jones the publisher of barron’s have a common owner news corp nwsa both rumble and truth social hope to peel users away from twitter the social media platform where donald trump built his online following the upstart platforms appealed to conservatives when twitter banned trump for a time from its platform the former president has been welcomed back to twitter since its 44 billion acquisition by tesla ceo elon musk in october the merger between the digital world spac and trump media has been repeatedly postponed as the spac has sought approval from its shareholders and the securities and exchange commission has sought revisions to the merger proxy filing’s disclosures neither company responded to queries from barron’s on the effect of a trump prosecution on their outlooks rumble shares have been on the rise for months as the company has reported gains in audience size and revenue the midterm elections in november boosted user engagement after a hiatus by its flagship content creator steven crowder the conservative comedian has returned to the platform the company is also striking deals with promoters of sports such as mixed martial arts and skateboarding thursday rumble reported a 580 jump in december quarter revenue to 20 million saying the average number of users per month jumped 140 the company had quarterly cash losses of 17 million a note by oppenheimer analyst jason helfstein said rumble management was performing well but that the company’s 36 billion valuation kept him from upgrading the stock he rates it at market perform