The 13 percent drop in US stocks from their 2015 highs has not only messed with tens of thousands of working-class 401(k) accounts, but also knocked more than a dozen American executives from the billionaires club.
Twenty US execs, including GoPro Chief Executive Nick Woodman and Valeant boss Michael Pearson, have fallen out of the coveted 10-figure net worth echelon, according to Forbes, which tracks the net worth of the wealthiest in real time.
Since May 19, the Dow has fallen 13.2 percent while GoPro shares have slipped 79 percent and Valeant shares are off 49 percent.
Globally, 145 people, or 8 percent of all billionaires, over the past eight months have fallen from the 10-figure level. There were 1,596 billionaires in the world as of Monday, according to Forbes.
The Dow Jones industrial average fell 208.29 on Monday, to 15,885.22, and is now off 8.8 percent this year.
Other US executives demoted from 10-figure status:
- Jamie Dimon, chairman and chief executive at JPMorgan Chase.
- Lloyd Blankfein, chairman and chief executive at Goldman Sachs.
Dimon, whose personal wealth is tied up in large part in JPMorgan shares, first became worth $1 billion last summer, according to Bloomberg, as the bank’s shares hit a high of $70.61.
Since then, JPMorgan shares have been caught in the downdraft and have fallen 21 percent, closing Monday at $55.66.
Dimon’s net worth is now $896 million, according to Bloomberg.
Blankfein’s story parallels that of Dimon. His net worth, weighted in Goldman stock, hit $1 billion when the Wall Street bank’s stock reached a high of $218.77 last June.
But Goldman shares sank to $151.17 Monday, down 31 percent from last summer.
Blankfein is now worth $914 million, according to the Bloomberg index.
GoPro’s Woodman saw his personal wealth slip to $802 million as of Monday, according to the Bloomberg index.
The action-camera entrepreneur boasted personal wealth in excess of $3 billion in October 2014, just four months after GoPro’s IPO.
But it’s been a long slide since the stock reached a high of nearly $100 back then, as evidenced by its Monday close at $10.59 per share.
Similarly reduced is Pearson’s net worth. His 10.1 million shares in pharma company Valeant were worth $2.7 billion when they peaked near $264 in August.
But the stock has fallen 65 percent since then, closing Monday at $92.63, to give him a net worth of $890 million, according to the Bloomberg index.
Also falling from the last Forbes annual billionaires list is Relativity Media’s Ryan Kavanaugh, health care executive Clifford Illig, money manager Charles Brandes, coffee king Robert Stiller and biotech biggie Alan Auerbach.
But just because they’re down doesn’t mean they’re out.
Jack Dorsey, CEO of both Twitter and Square, made headlines last week when Forbes reported his net worth had dipped below $1 billion.
Yet the Bloomberg Index had the tech tycoon riding high again on Monday with a $1.2 billion fortune.