Global trade tensions and an aging U.S. expansion, with the Federal Reserve still raising interest rates, helped plunge stocks into the red for the year. The retreat stings those dedicating a sliver of their paycheck to their 401(k) and wiped out $511 billion from the wealthiest among us in 2018.
The 500 people on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index are down to a combined net worth of $4.7 trillion as of Friday’s close.
Their fortunes were presumably still getting nicked as a historic Christmas Eve stock plunge on Monday followed the worst week for the market since the financial crisis of 2008.
Read: Billionaire David Tepper says stock market tumbled too sharply Monday — so now he’s ‘nibbling’
It’s only the second annual decline for the daily wealth index since its 2012 debut, and stands in marked contrast from the start of the year, when bullish investors helped propel the worth of the richest to a record $5.6 trillion, Bloomberg said.
Read: The S&P 500, other indexes fall by the most ever on Christmas Eve
Amazon.com
AMZN, -2.43%
founder Jeff Bezos, who recorded the biggest gain for 2018, had to stomach some ups and downs. His fortune peaked at $168 billion in September, a $69 billion gain from where it stood a year earlier. It later tumbled $53 billion, to leave him with $115 billion at year-end. Amazon shares are up nearly 15% year to date through Monday.
That’s a better year than Mark Zuckerberg’s. The Facebook
FB, -0.71%
head logged the deepest loss among the billionaires in the index, losing $23 billion since January, based largely on company shares. Facebook shares are down 29% year to date through Monday.
It’s not just the U.S.’s high-rollers with lighter accounts of late.
Asia’s 128 billionaires lost a combined $144 billion in 2018. The three biggest losers in Asia all hailed from China, led by Wanda Group’s Wang Jianlin, whose fortune declined $11.1 billion. The region minted 39 new billionaires in 2018, for at least part of the year.
Saudi Arabia’s richest man, Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, who was placed in detention as part of an alleged corruption crackdown by the ruling family for a time last spring, lost $3.4 billion this year. His net worth has fallen by 60% since its peak in 2014, the Bloomberg data shows.
Don’t miss: Trump losing support of America’s millionaires — even Republicans — poll finds
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Source : MTV
