America's richest lose billions after market plunge

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos lost US$9.6 billion ($15.9b) after shares in the e-commerce giant fell 7 per cent. Photo / AP

America's richest have lost billions of dollars after worse-than-expected US inflation data prompted a sell-off on Wall Street.

The S&P 500 closed down 4.3 per cent, its worst performance since June 2020, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite ended trading more than 5 per cent lower.

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos' wealth plunged US$9.6 billion ($15.9b), according to Forbes, as shares in the e-commerce giant fell 7 per cent.

Bezos is currently worth US$150.2b, down from around US$214b in July last year, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

The world's richest man, Tesla founder and chief executive Elon Musk, saw his fortune fall by US$8.3b to US$265.6b as Tesla shares fell 4 per cent.

Facebook owner Meta was one of the day's biggest losers, falling more than 9 per cent and its co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg lost US$5.5b as a result.

Zuckerberg's fortune has fallen from a peak of around US$141b in August last year to US$57.2b, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Meta has been battered this year, its shares are now down 54 per cent for the year from US$338.54 in early January to its latest close of US$153.13.

Google co-founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin saw their fortunes fall US$5.1b and US$4.8b respectively.

Warren Buffett, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, lost US$3.3b, while Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates's net worth dropped US$2.7b.

US inflation surprise

The consumer price index (CPI) - which measures the changing price of goods and services - increased 0.1 per cent for August, above economists' expectations for a 0.1 per cent drop.

Annual CPI rose 8.3 per cent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Worryingly core inflation - which strips out volatile items like energy and food - rose by 6.3 per cent annually, and 0.6 per cent for the month.

The Federal Open Market Committee will meet later this month where it is expected Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell will deliver a third consecutive 0.75 percentage point rate hike.

However, with the latest inflation figures, it is not out of the possibility of a full percentage point rate rise.

The odds of such a rise rose to roughly 30 per cent versus 0 per cent at the start of the week, according to CME Group.

Last week Powell reiterated he is "strongly committed" to bringing down inflation.

The central bank has raised its benchmark rate four times so far this year to 2.25-2.50 per cent.

NZX and ASX fall

Wall Street's sell-off overnight flowed into the local market and across the Tasman.

The New Zealand sharemarket dropped by 1.2 per cent, or 145 points, in the opening minutes of trade.

The S&P/NZX50 index was down 1.05 per cent to 11,646 points by late afternoon.

In Australia, the benchmark ASX 200 opened sharply lower. The S&P/ASX200 fell 1.07 per cent within the first few minutes of trade. After the first 45 minutes of the session it had fallen 2.83 per cent, or 198.3 points, to 6811.4 points.

The tumble resulted in A$66 billion ($74.1b) in market capitalisation being wiped out, according to news.com.au.

The S&P/ASX200 was down 2.49 per cent by the afternoon.