By The US stock market’s record-breaking rally has boosted the fortunes of the world’s billionaires, with those with 9 figures to their name seeing their wealth climb by around $2 trillion in a year, according to UBS.
The total wealth held by billionaires globally rose nearly 17% in the 12 months leading up to April of this year, jumping from $12 trillion to $14 trillion, the bank said in a report published on Thursday.
The world’s total number of billionaires also rose over the 12-month period, from 2,544 to 2,682, the report added.
The wealth boom has been largely fueled by the US stock market, with the S&P 500 up 28% this year. Billionaires in the US saw the steepest wealth increase, with their fortunes boosted by 28% in the last year. The billionaire population in America swelled by 11%, with a total of 835 billionaires recorded in the country in 2024.
Billionaires surveyed in the report added that they saw the largest opportunity in North American investments. 80% said they preferred North American investments over other regions over the next 12 months, and 68% said they preferred North American investments for the next five years.
Tech, industrials, and materials were the main sectors that drove wealth creation last year, the report added. Tech billionaires, in particular, have tripled their wealth over the last decade from $789 billion in 2015 to $2.4 trillion as of April this year, according to UBS’s analysis.
“While regional differences have emerged in the past 10 years, tech entrepreneurs have played a steadily increasing role across the global economy,” the firm wrote.
The S&P 500 has notched more than 50 record-highs in 2024, with the market marked by extreme bullishness and growing worry that the rally is becoming overextended. A handful of valuation measures show that the stock market is stretched to historical extremes, a research firm said this week.
