Last one has been a long week for Wall Street and companies, many of whose stocks have dropped sharply. The CBOE Market Volatility Index, which represents the expectations of markets when it comes to volatility over the next 30 days, is currently trading at 30.67 points.
Most of the major companies of the world have slowly been recovering from the effects of 2020, and while most of 2021 has been helpful in healing the wounds and emergence of unicorns, the journey is far from over. Evident from the underwhelming November jobs report for the U.S. (which showed that the unemployment rate in November dropped to 4.2%, just above the Federal Reserve’s target of 4% for maximum employment, the lowest since February 2020), the Omicron variant, and a possible Federal Reserve rate hike. All of the above factors have resulted in steep falls in US Stocks.
Shares of Big Tech names such as Amazon, Google’s parent company Alphabet, Amazon, Facebook, Netflix, and others fell by a steep 296 points, a fall of 1.9%. The S&P index recorded eight new 52-week highs and five new lows, while the NASDAQ recorded 12 new highs and 585 new lows.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average dropped by 60.24 points to 34,579.55, a drop of 0.17%, while the S&P 500 dropped by 41.62 points (0.91%) to 4,535.48. NASDAQ Composite dipped 319.08 points, or 2.07%, at 15,062.25.
The steep fall in stocks left its mark on the net worth of some of the richest men in the world, as they dropped by billions. Elon Musk’s net worth fell the most – by $15.2 billion – while his EV company Tesla shares fell more than 6%. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos saw his net worth plunged by $2.7 billion as his e-commerce behemoth Amazon’s shares dropped by 1.4% in New York. Oracle Corp co-founder Larry Ellison’s net worth fell by $2.6 billion, while that of Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg dropped by $1.3 billion to come at $114.7 billion. His Meta (which is the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp) did not fare any better and fell by almost 20%.
Perhaps it is the fall of stocks of software company DocuSign which is the steepest (42%), while other companies such as work management platform Asana (drop of 26%), discount retail store chain Ollie’s bargain Outlet (a drop of 20%), China’s Uber-like service DiDi Global (a drop of 22%), computer systems design services company Nvidia (a drop of 4%), and others trail behind.
