Brutal stock market week
Musk is $25 billion poorer
01/22/2022, 11:07 am
The stock markets are going down, especially tech stocks are getting under the wheels. Billions of dollars in market value vanish into thin air. The fortunes of tech billionaires Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos are also shrinking significantly.
The world’s richest people are also feeling the effects of the stock market sell-off – especially if their wealth is based primarily on technology stocks or cryptocurrencies. At the forefront is Tesla boss Elon Musk, who lost a whopping $ 25 billion within a week on the “billionaire index” set up by “Bloomberg”. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is now $20 billion lighter. And for Changpeng Zhao, founder of crypto exchange Binance, it’s down nearly $18 billion.
It was not a good week on the stock exchanges. Markets fell the hardest since the pandemic broke out. This is mainly due to the fact that the US Federal Reserve is likely to start a series of interest rate hikes soon in view of the high inflation. When interest rates rise, stocks become less attractive. In addition, tighter monetary policy dries up liquidity in the market. The technology sector is considered to be particularly sensitive to rising market interest rates. Because the companies manage their lavish investments with a high proportion of outside capital.
The current mood on Netflix shares is impressive. After the quarterly figures were presented, the price collapsed by more than 20 percent, falling to its lowest level since April 2020. This means that the strong price gains made during the pandemic vanished into thin air within a few hours. The Nasdaq 100 tech index has fallen nearly 14 percent from its record high in November. Against this background, the high-risk cryptocurrencies are also falling under the wheels. Bitcoin fell to its lowest level in half a year.
Musk defends top spot
According to Bloomberg, the top 5 tech billionaires lost a total of $67 billion on the week. In addition to Musk, Bezos and Zhao, these include Microsoft founder Bill Gates and Google co-founder Larry Page.
Of the ten richest, only one has not lost money: Bernard Arnault, head of the luxury goods group LVMH. “Bloomberg” estimates his fortune at $167.5 billion – just behind Bezos, who comes to $167.6 billion. Despite the losses, Musk remains the undisputed leader with around $243 billion.