For the first time in half a century, global bond and securities markets have seen a massive drop in prices. Reuters reports that the main factor leading to this situation was the Kremlin regime’s attack on Ukraine. As a result, the total value of sovereign wealth funds and government pension funds has fallen by $2.2 trillion.
"The value of assets managed by sovereign wealth funds fell to $10.6 trillion from $11.5 trillion, while the value of assets held by government pension funds fell to $20.8 trillion from $22.1 trillion,” the agency reports, citing a Global SWF report.
The average decline in asset value was 10%, a 50-year record. The war unleashed by Russia has also triggered instability in the commodities market and pushed inflation in developed countries to a historic high. In the United Kingdom, for example, inflation reached a 40-year high.
By the end of last year, the world’s 500 richest people had lost $1.4 trillion. In 2022, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Changpeng Zhao, and Mark Zuckerberg lost approximately $392 billion of their combined wealth. The FTX cryptocurrency exchange, owned by Bankman-Fried, collapsed after a liquidity crisis exposed weaknesses in his crypto empire.