The world’s 500 richest people have lost a total of $1.4 trillion this year, including $206 billion in losses on Monday alone, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, as global financial markets collapse under the weight of rising interest rates and exacerbating inflation fears.
These losses are in stark contrast to performance over the past year, when rising markets increased the global population of high net worth individuals by about 8%, including 13% in America, according to a Capgemini World Wealth report released Tuesday.
The data shows that the ranks of the wealthy in Asia and the Pacific increased by only 4.2%, lagging behind Europe and falling further than America after it dominated the growth of the number of HNWIs over the past decade.
The Chinese crackdown on tech companies and the mediocre real estate market performance was partly to blame, but it also reflected strong gains in US stock markets, helping to amplify everything from cryptocurrencies to real estate value. This is quickly reversing now with inflation surging, raising concerns about how aggressively the Fed will raise interest rates.
However, the Capgemini report revealed how beneficial the Corona pandemic is, how the economic elite are benefiting from government facilities and where they mostly reside.
still United State Japan, China and Germany are among the countries where most of the world’s wealthy live, as the report showed that these countries are home to about 64% of the world’s wealthy.
What’s more, even among the world’s highest net worth individuals, it is the very wealthy who have achieved the most benefits. People with investable assets of $30 million or more saw their wealth expand 9.6%, compared to 2020, the fastest pace among the groups studied in the report, while those with $1 million to $5 million – defined as “millionaires next door.” They achieved a slower wealth growth of 7.8%.
Of course, this rapid rise is now under control as Bitcoin, Ether and the rest of the cryptocurrency collapses, and tech startups find the new cost of funding rising amid central banks’ drive to raise interest rates is about to become even more expensive.