In the span of only eight minutes, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powellcaused a market crash that reduced the fortune of the richest people in the United States by 78 billion dollars.
Elon Musk saw $5.5 billion erased from his wealth; Jeff Bezos he lost $6.8 billion, the most for anyone on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. the fortunes of Bill Gates y Warren Buffett were reduced by $2.2 billion and $2.7 billion, respectively, while Sergey Brin’s fell below $100 billion.
Powell used his speech at the Jackson Hole forum to reiterate that the US Central Bank will continue to raise interest rates and will likely leave them elevated for a while. to reduce inflation.
It was seen as reversing a recent rally in US stocks that was fueled by speculation that policymakers would soon reverse course on their aggressive monetary tightening.
The S&P 500 fell 3.4 percent, his worst day since mid june. The Nasdaq, which lists Microsoft, Amazon, Tesla and Alphabet among its biggest components, slumped more than 4 percent.
Few multi-million dollar fortunes have been saved this year. The 500 richest people in the world lost 1.4 trillion dollars in the first half of 2022the steepest drop in six months for the world’s richest people, but US stocks posted their biggest monthly gain since November 2020 in July, prompting investors to bet the worst of the market’s slump was over. past.
Instead, Powell’s speech served as a reminder that tech company valuations they remain high by historical standards following an unprecedented rise during the COVID pandemic, when interest rates hovered near zero.
