Jeff Bezos and other top execs offloaded shares just before pandemic slashed billions of company values
AMAZON boss Jeff Bezos and other top executives saved themselves billions after offloading their companies shares before the coronavirus pandemic slashed their values.
According to analysis conducted by the Wall Street Journal, executives at top US traded companies sold around $9.2 billion shares of their own companies between the first week of February and the end of last week.
The quick offload of shares has proven to have saved the executives, who are amongst the wealthiest in the country, billions of dollars.
The decision to offload the shares came at the right time before the markets plummeted.
On March 16, the stock market experienced the third worst percentage drop in market history, falling behind only the 1929 crash that triggered The Great Depression.
The Wall Street Journal analysis estimates that the sales prevented the top bosses from losing $1.9 billion between them as the S&P stock index plunged about 30% between February 19 and March 20.
Amazon's CEO Jeff Bezos sold the biggest amount, offloading $3.4 billion in shares in the first week of February.
The strategic offload saved the billionaire $317 million than if he had kept the stock through until March 20.
Bezos sold more shares in one week than he sold the int he entire of last year, the Journal reported.
Laurence Fink, who is CEO of the American global investment management corporation BlackRock, sold $25 million of his company's shares on February 14, saving himself losses of more than $9.3 billion.
More than 150 top executives who had sold at list $1million worth of stock in February and March had not sold any stock in the last 12 months, the Journal had discovered.
The report put together by the Journal also shows that it wasn't just top executives that sold off shares t salvage their own wealth.
Four senators have been accused of dumping millions of dollars in stocks after being given classified briefings on coronavirus.
Three Republicans, Senate Intelligence Committee chairman Richard Burr of North Carolina, Georgia Sen. Kelly Loeffler, and Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe reportedly sold large stock holdings that plummeted in market value due to the coronavirus crisis, according to financial disclosure records.
Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein, who serves alongside Burr on the Intelligence Committee, is also accused of selling stock holdings before the market crash, mainly in a biotech firm.
Also caught in the scandal is Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson.
On Thursday, US Capitol reporter, Jamie Dupree, tweeted a photo suggesting Johnson's sold off stocks of between $5 million and $25 million. Johnson has yet to comment on the allegations.
Burr dumped up to $1.7 million on February 13, according to ProPublica, while Feinstein may have sold up to $6 million in stock between January 31 and February 18, according to The New York Times.
A spokesman for Feinstein said she wasn't involved in the sale.
With the continued cases of the deadly virus experts have warned that a "global recession is inevitable".
Panic of the spread of the virus has intensified stock market sell-off which caused more than half a trillion pounds being knocked off the value of the FTSE 100 in the last month.
The virus continues to spread quickly across the US with 54,968 confirmed cases and 784 deaths.
===============================
No comments:
Post a Comment