Agencies-Gaza post
In 8 minutes, US top billionaires lose $78 billion
In just eight minutes, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell sparked a market downturn that wiped out $78 billion from the fortunes of America’s richest man.
The declines erased $ 5.5 billion from Elon Musk’s wealth, and Jeff Bezos lost $ 6.8 billion, recording the largest loss in the (Bloomberg) Billionaires Index, as well as the fortunes of Bill Gates and Warren Buffett decreased by $ 2.2 billion and $ 2.7 billion, respectively, while Sergey’s fortune decreased Brin for less than $100 billion, according to what was reported by (Bloomberg East).
Powell’s speech came during the annual monetary policy forum of the US Federal Reserve in Kansas City in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, where he reiterated that the Fed will continue to raise interest rates and continue as well for a period of time to reduce inflation, which reduced the recent rises in stocks.
The US economy is driven by expectations that monetary policy makers will reverse the path of strong monetary tightening soon.
The “Standard & Poor’s 500” index fell 3.4%, to record the worst daily decline since mid-June, and the “Nasdaq 100” index, which includes major technology companies, including: “Microsoft”, “Amazon”, “Tesla” and Alphabet” by more than 4%.
Investors bet that the worst was over after US stocks recorded the strongest monthly rise since November 2020, which contributed to reducing the declines that hit the fortunes of billionaires this year, as the richest 500 people in the world lost 1.4 trillion dollars in the first half of 2022, in the largest A drop in the wealth of the richest people on the planet in six months.
On the other hand, Powell’s speech reminded us that valuations of giant technology companies are still high by historical standards, after their unprecedented rise during the (Covid-19) pandemic, when interest rates were fixed near zero.
