US billionaire sells $11 billion worth of stocks. Is a financial crisis looming?

America’s billionaires are selling stocks, and the number is by no means small. So what happened in the last few days? Leon Black of Apollo Global Management has executed his first sale after cutting $172.8 million from his public company over 34 years. The Walton family of Walmart made $1.5 billion in sales in one week. In the last two months of 2023, Mark Zuckerberg sold nearly $500 million in Meta Platforms stock. Jeff Bezos sold an additional 14 million shares of Amazon stock, worth about $2.4 billion, bringing the total number of company shares he sold to about 50 million.

Experts say this may be due to the impending US presidential election this year, and do not see this as a good sign. “If you look at what’s going to happen in our politics over the next year or so, we’re in a pretty good place right now,” financial company consultant Alan Johnson told Fortune magazine last month. “The market is up. ” he said. With the way our politics and everything else is going geopolitically, it’s probably not going to be as good a year from now, two years from now. ”

This comes as the S&P 500 index has risen more than 27% over the past year, adding billions of dollars to billionaires’ portfolios. As a result, shareholders may be taking advantage of current tax breaks introduced during President Donald Trump’s administration, experts said.

But some financial market observers believe the stock sell-off reflects something much larger behind the scenes. American Hartford Gold Co., which sells gold and other metals to investors for shillings, said senior director Mechi Bullock said these CEOs were “leaving before the tech bubble bursts.” , said large-scale liquidations could be a sign of an impending economic downturn.

“Billionaire CEOs like things like [Jeff] bezos [Mark] Mr. Zuckerberg, Jamie Dimon and the Walton family have sold large amounts of their company stock, leading analysts to believe that CEOS may be bracing for an economic downturn. “The stock market continues to rise to new heights,” he added. Investors fearing missing out have fueled the frenzy, with economic players selling billions of dollars worth of stocks. ”

“Meta stock has soared 186 percent, JPMorgan is up nearly 30 percent, and Amazon is actually up nearly 90 percent. All three companies are trading near all-time highs,” he explained. “Typically, when a CEO is buying stock, it shows confidence in the future growth potential of that company. It also shows that these billionaires have a top-down view of the economy and its direction. It might give you a different perspective.”