S&P 500: Think Your Losses Hurt? 5 Hardest-Hit Investors Lose $160 Billion

Here’s something to cheer you up if you’re among investors losing lots of money on the S&P 500 this year. You didn’t drop anywhere near that of five unlucky investors.

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Just five individuals who are among largest holders of the S&P 500 companies to shed the most market value this year, including Mark Zuckerberg at Meta Platforms (META), lost $160 billion this year on their stocks, says an Investor’s Business Daily analysis of data from S&P Global Market Intelligence and MarketSmith. The 10 companies to lose the most market value, which still have an individual investor among the top 25 holders, were examined. Such losses put a face behind the S&P 500’s nearly 19% plunge this year.

“U.S. stocks are weakening as Wall Street expects the Fed to remain aggressive with their fight against inflation and as Ford (F) reminds us supply chain issues are still troubling,” said Edward Moya, senior market analysts at Oanda.

S&P 500: Near-Bear Market Stings

The S&P 500 is close to returning to 20% bear market territory. And with the Fed’s decision on short-term interest hikes just a day away, investors are already planning for the worse.

It’s already been a tough year for investors. To date, the S&P 500 has already erased more than $9 trillion in shareholder value. Some of the companies’ losses are head turning. Microsoft (MSFT) alone has shed $716.7 billion in market value just this year. And institutions certainly took their lumps. Vanguard, the top owner of 66% of companies, is also the No. 1 holder of Microsoft stock. And its loss on the stock is $59 billion on just that stock.

But that loss is spread across millions of investors. No single investor is in the top 25 holders of Microsoft.

But some top individual owners of big losers aren’t so lucky.

Mark Zuckerberg’s Terrible, Very Bad Year

Meta Platforms CEO Zuckerberg is in a class of his own when it comes to losses this year: nearly $66 billion dollars on just his stake.

Zuckerberg rode the social media stock down more than 50% this year. And that translates into a massive loss for the 38-year-old CEO. He still owns nearly 13% of the company, the largest remaining position of any of these individual owners. As Zuckerberg is feeling in his wallet, it’s likely going to be a couple of hard years for the company. Analysts think the company’s profit will drop by nearly 30% this year. And the company’s profitability isn’t seen returning to 2021 levels until 2025.

Other Biggest Losers

Zuckerberg, though, has some company in big losses. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, too, has seen $44 billion in paper gains evaporate this year.

Bezos continues to own 9.8% of the online shopping company, making him not only the largest shareholder, but also the largest individual shareholder. And that’s been a big liability this year, as shares of Amazon are down nearly 27% this year. Again, there’s fundamental reason behind the stock downturn. The company’s adjusted profit is seen plunging more than 98% in 2022, analysts say. And analysts don’t think Amazon’s profit will return to 2021 levels until 2024.

Alphabet’s Larry Page isn’t the very largest owner of the online company anymore (that’s Vanguard with 6.9% of the company’s stock). But he still holding 6% of the shares, making him the largest individual owner. That heavy weight explains why the value of his position is down $33.8 billion following a 30% drop in the shares this year. Nvidia’s Jen-Hsun Huang and Netflix’ Reed Hastings are also the largest individual owners of their companies’ stocks — and are down billions this year as a result.

And they, along with the rest, are paying the price now.

Biggest S&P 500 Losers This Year

Individual holders down the most on the largest 10 market cap decliners this year

 Sources: IBD, S&P Global Market Intelligence