The stock market, you might have heard, has seen better days lately, thanks in part to market concerns over the ongoing coronavirus crisis. And on paper at least, those that have seen the biggest craters in their net worths are those with the most money tied up in stocks – in other words, the richest people in the world. Both the the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average have seen steep drops recently, including one of more than three percent each in a single trading day.
That day in turn translated to big dips in the fortunes of people like LVMH chairman Bernard Arnault and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, both of whom saw almost $5 billion shear off their respective fortunes thanks to drops in stock market price of their companies. Fashion billionaire Amancio Ortega saw a reported single-day drop in his fortune of about $4 billion, and virtually no billionaire with any skin in the stock market game managed to escape without seeing similar declines.
But as you can imagine, certain industries have been hit harder than others in the wake of coronavirus panic. Bloomberg reports that cruise line companies such as Carnival Corp., Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd., and Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings Ltd. saw some of the biggest drops, with declines as much as nine percent in a single day's trading.