The richest 500 people in the world saw another $331 billion wiped off from their fortunes, according to the «Bloomberg Billionaires Index», with wealth loss totaling $950 billion year-to-date.
Major coronavirus headlines yesterday coupled with ongoing headwinds such as oil price concerns caused markets to spiral further downwards. Year-to-date, the world’s richest 500, as per the index, lost 16 percent of their collective net worth with no sector nor region being safe from the meltdown.
Even the reported behavioral changes amongst the ultra-rich signal intensified fear including increased demand for private jets and shifts to secluded second homes.
Bad Day for Billionaires
The $331 billion erased on Thursday marks the worst one-day plunge in the 8-year history of the index. Notable wealth drops for the day included LVMH’s Bernard Arnault (-$9.5 billion) and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos (-$8.1 billion). The fortune of 53 billionaires fell to their lowest since joining the index.
As a region, Russia posted major losses especially after OPEC discussions failed to result in an output cut which led the country’s two dozen wealthiest people to lose $65 billion this year – nearly one-fifth of the total wealth loss from the index.
