Power couple: Bezos with girlfriend Lauren Sanchez
Jeff Bezos saw his fortune tumble by around £10bn after a ‘nightmare’ update from Amazon sent shares sharply lower.
The 58-year-old has a near-10 per cent stake in the firm he founded in 1994, making him the world’s fourth richest person.
But Amazon shares fell by as much as 10 per cent on Wall Street yesterday after warning Christmas sales would be weaker than expected and profits could be eliminated.
That wiped £100billion off Amazon’s value and £10billion off Bezos’s stake.
Amazon shares have fallen around 40 per cent this year – hitting Bezos to the tune of £60bn. Despite this, he has a fortune of some £100billion.
It has been a devastating year for tech stocks, with some £2.75trillion wiped off the value of US giants Amazon, Netflix, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook owner Meta, Snap and Google owner Alphabet so far in 2022.
And analysts at broker Wedbush said this week would ‘go down in the history books’ as one of the sector’s worst earnings seasons.
Amazon forecast net sales of £121billion to £128billion for the last three months of 2022, below an expected £134billion.
It added that profit over the crucial Christmas period could be zero, compared with £12billion for the period last year. The world’s biggest online retailer has been grappling with rising costs, falling consumer spending and competition from rivals such as US retail giant Walmart.
Dan Ives of Wedbush said the update was a ‘nightmare on Elm Street’.
He added: ‘The dark storm clouds are negatively impacting Amazon from all angles in this miserable week for Big Tech earnings.’
AJ Bell’s Laith Khalaf said: ‘Inflation could be the Grinch which stole Christmas for many retailers and, it turns out, Amazon is no exception.
‘Margins are under pressure as customers increasingly focus on cost and while this is still a fast-growing and lucrative business, there’s a sense the market is having to reset some pretty elevated expectations.’
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