From $630 billion to $511 billion — in a single day.
That’s how much Facebook stock tumbled in a 24-hour period from the closing bell Wednesday to Thursday’s bell.
This is the single biggest one-day loss in market history.
$511 billion still exceeds the annual gross domestic product of countries like Poland, Belgium and Iran, but to put the $119 billion loss in perspective, that’s roughly the entire value of companies like McDonald’s and Nike. It’s also roughly the same as the combined market cap of General Motors, Ford, Kellog’s and Campbell Soup Company, some of the most iconic American brands.
The massacre personally cost Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg nearly $16 billion, dropping him from No. 3 to No. 6 on the Bloomberg Billionaire’s Index.
While it’s hard to imagine anyone worried about a man who is still worth nearly $71 billion, how does Facebook’s record day of losses compare to the other worst days in market history?
Biggest Single-Day Crashes in Market History
To find the second-biggest one-day loss in market history you have to go all the way back to Sept. 22 of 2000, when the dot-com bust saw Intel lose 22 percent of its market cap, worth about $90.7 billion dollars — still nearly $30 billion less than Facebook’s new record losses.
The dot-com bust also hit Microsoft with a sledge hammer on April 3, 2000, knocking Bill Gates’ company down 14.5 percent and about $80 billion.
Microsoft’s chief rival, Apple, saw big losses on Jan. 24, 2013, when the company’s stock dipped 12.4 percent for nearly $60 billion in losses.
ExxonMobil rounds out the top five worst days in history with $53 billion in losses, or about 14 percent of the company’s market cap, on Oct. 15, 2008.
- Facebook, July 26, 2018: – $119 billion
- Intel, Sept. 22, 2000: – $90.7 billion
- Microsoft, April 3, 2000: – $80 billion
- Apple, Jan. 24, 2013: – $59.6 billion
- ExxonMobil, Oct. 15, 2008: – $52.5 billion
- General Electric, April 11, 2008: – 46.9 billion
- Alphabet (Google), Feb. 2, 2018: – 41 billion
- Bank of America, Oct. 7, 2008: – $38.5 billion
- Amazon, April 2, 2018: – $36.5 billion
- Wells Fargo, Feb. 5, 2018: – $28.9 billion