The stock market rout is starting to get really expensive — destroying $2.3 trillion from the market’s top last year and $1.5 trillion in net wealth just this year.
The giant companies that predominantly populate the Standard & Poor’s 500 have fallen an average of 8.9% this year — which, when translated into dollars, is real money. The S&P 500 is down 8% this year already — including another 2.2% Friday — in what’s been the worst start to a year ever. Since the market peak on May 21, 2015, the market has declined 11.7%.
The U.K.’s referendum to leave the European Union was a costly decision in more ways than one.
Worldwide markets hemorrhaged more than $2 trillion in paper wealth on Friday, according to data from S&P Global, the worst on record. For context, that figure eclipsed the whipsaw trading sessions of the 2008 financial crisis, according to S&P. The prior one day sell-off record was $1.9 trillion back in September of 2008. According to S&P’s Broad Market Index, combined market capitalization is currently worth nearly $42 trillion.
Massive demand for safe-haven assets is outstripping supply, he added, meaning currencies like the yen and U.S. dollar, as well as government bonds and gold, are likely to keep booming.