World's wealthiest-500 have lost $436 billion so far in 2018
The first two months of 2018 have been rather expensive for the 500 wealthiest people on planet Earth. After US stock market indices registered their steepest weekly drop in two years, $181 billion was slashed off their combined fortune in one week itself. Since markets peaked on January 26, the combined net worth of the 500 richest has shrunk by $436 billion. Here's more.
The combined fortune of the 500 wealthiest now surpasses $5.2 trillion. Indians among the top 100, according to Bloomberg Billionaires Index, include 19th-placed Mukesh Ambani ($38.4bn), 53rd-placed Lakshmi Mittal ($18.3bn), 66th-placed Pallonji Mistry ($16.6bn), 69th-placed Azim Premji ($16.4bn), and 87th-placed Shiv Nadar ($14.4bn).
The drop in the US stock market indices, namely the S&P 500 Index and the Dow Jones Industrial Average, comes on the back of heated rhetoric over tariffs, retaliation and fears of trade war between the US and other countries, India included. This week, the S&P 500 Index saw a six-week low fall of 2.5%, while Dow Jones Industrial Average fell by 3.5%.
At the time of writing, the 10 richest people, according to Bloomberg Billionaires Index, are Jeff Bezos ($125bn), Bill Gates ($89.1bn), Warren Buffett ($82.6bn), Amancio Ortega ($62.8bn), Bernard Arnault ($65.9bn), Carlos Slim ($65.4bn), Mark Zuckerberg ($65.1bn), Larry Page ($51.1bn), Larry Ellison ($50.8n), Sergey Brin ($49.8bn).
Notably, this week's damage to the world's richest hit Mark Zuckerberg the hardest, as the Facebook founder and CEO dropped three places to seventh on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index after $10.3 billion of his fortune was wiped out. Zuckerberg's misfortune comes on the back of reports that it let Cambridge Analytica amass data on 50 million users. Consequently, Facebook shares tumbled 14% this week.
Losses for Zuckerberg were followed by losses for Spanish business tycoon Amancio Ortega, and Mexican business magnate Carlos Slim, who suffered losses of $2.4 billion each. Alphabet Inc.'s Larry Page and Sergey Brin saw losses of more than $2 billion each this week. In aggregated numbers, Oracle's Larry Ellison, Berkshire Hathaway's Warren Buffet, Amazon's Jeff Bezos, and Larry Page lost $17 billion this week.
