In July of 1962, Sam Walton opened the first Wal-Mart store in Rogers, Arkansas. I probably don’t have to tell you this, but his business turned out to be extremely successful.
Today, Walton’s heirs are among the richest people in the world. The Wal-Mart fortune is currently controlled by four Waltons: Sam’s children Jim, Alice and Rob, and Christy, the widow of their deceased brother John. Together, these four individuals own over half of all Wal-Mart shares on the stock market.
On Wednesday, they saw $11 billion of their combined net worth vanish in a matter of hours as Wal-Mart shares dropped 10% in a single day of trading — a result of lower-than-expected earnings projections for next year.
$11 billion is a staggering amount of money to lose in any period of time, but it’s worth noting that the New York Stock is only open for six-and-a-half hours a day, from 9:30 AM to 4 PM (EST). If you do the math, that comes out to a little over $470,000 per second disappearing from the pockets of the Walton heirs on Wednesday.
The catastrophe punctuated what has been a tough year for the four wealthiest Waltons, who have lost a combined $41 billion since the beginning of 2015.
Still, things could be much worse: even after Wednesday’s $11 billion hit, Jim, Alice, Rob and Christy Walton have a combined net worth of $120 billion.
Read more from Bloomberg.