Ever heard that celebrities can create a major impact on the stock market? But have you wondered how? Don’t worry we got you covered!
Companies have long known that celebrities can make or break their businesses. That’s why they pay oodles of money to use their fame in advertisements. But sometimes the actions of influencers and celebrities can fluctuate the share prices in the share market. When influencers or celebrities invest in any company, it causes speculators to go into overdrive, but when celebrities show negative feelings towards a company, it can send the markets reeling. This is just the situation of Celebrity stocks. The companies whose share prices are influenced by famous individuals like actors, well-known CEOs, or lauded investors are called Celebrity stocks. In the past couple of years, there have been various examples of celebrities having a direct impact on the price of companies.
When celebrities make negative comments about a brand or a company, there are many examples where the company has lost billions as a direct result. But when a famous face that's mainly a celebrity makes an investment in a firm or sings its praises, the company’s shares have seen a major gain.
Let’s check some of the examples:
1. Kylie Jenner vs Snapchat:
Kylie Jenner in 2018, wiped $1.3bn (£900m) off the stock market value of Snap, the company behind Snapchat, with a single tweet on Twitter.
Her negative remarks had an immediate impact on Snapchat investors and by the close of trading, Snapchat’s stock had dropped 6% that caused a loss of $1.3bn in market value.
2. Elon Musk - Signal/Doge/Tesla/Bitcoin:
From Doge to Bitcoin, Musk’s market-moving tweets are right to cause investors to worry. For example, The Tesla boss wiped $14 billion off the company’s value in May 2020 after tweeting about the share price being too high.
Surprisingly, It also knocked $3 billion off Musk’s stake in Tesla, as investors bailed out of the company. It has eventually become a meme on social media saying that he can voluntarily influence the market conditions.
3. Donald Trump vs Boeing:
The former President of the United States often exploited his social media especially Twitter to influence big corporations, and one of the most significant examples of this was towards aerospace company Boeing in 2016.
Trump used his (now banned) Twitter account to argue that “costs are out of control” and “cancel order” which sent Boeing stock cascading by almost $2 a share, which represented a $1bn loss in value.
4. Oprah Winfrey - Weight Watchers:
In 2015, Oprah Winfrey bought 6.4 million shares at $6.79 a share, worth around $43.2 million at that time, now worth around $38 a share. She sold some of them, but still holds 5.4 million shares which is around 8% of the company.
Winfrey gave an inspirational speech at the Golden Globes that went viral on social media which helped the company achieve a share price as high as $53.60.
So we can definitely say that celebrities can influence the stock market positively as well as can create a plunge too.
By - Bhargab
Comments