BOLSA:GRANDES PERDEDORES

by Peter Newcomb

October 9, 2008, 6:43 PM

It was exactly a year ago (give or take a day) when the Dow Jones Industrial Average established its all-time high of 14,279. Friday morning it will open at 8,579—a 40 percent drop. Most of us whose meager wealth is tied up in 401(k) plans have suffered a beating of similar magnitude. But just how have the obscenely affluent fared? VF.com took a look at the nation's 25 richest people whose fortunes are primarily derived from one or two publicly traded stocks.

The result? Not so great! On top of the list (or the bottom, depending on how you look at it) is Sheldon Adelson. The cantankerous casino mogul's shares in his Las Vegas Sands have plummeted 91 percent since reaching their peak last October, shedding a staggering $24.8 billion from his net worth. The collective fortune of Google's founding wunderkinds, Sergey Brin and Larry Page, dropped $12 billion. Even Wall Street savior Warren Buffett got whacked, giving up $16.3 billion of his considerable paper wealth.

And you thought you were taking it on the chin.

Name	Company	Billions Lost/$	Peak Value/$	Current Value/$	% Loss
Sheldon Adelson	Las Vegas Sands	24.9	27.5	2.6	91%
Walton clan	Wal-Mart	21.1	108.0	86.9	19%
Warren Buffett	Berkshire Hathaway	16.3	66.0	49.7	25%
Sergey Brin & Larry Page	Google	12.1	21.6	9.5	56%
Bill Gates	Microsoft	12.0	29.7	17.7	40%
Larry Ellison	Oracle	8.5	27.1	18.6	31%
Charles & Rupert Johnson	Franklin Resources	8.5	13.3	4.8	64%
Harold Hamm	Continental Resouces	7.6	10.3	2.7	74%
Steve Ballmer	Microsoft	6.2	15.3	9.1	40%
Stephen Schwarzman	Blackstone Group	4.9	6.9	2.0	71%
Rupert Murdoch	News Corp.	4.8	7.6	2.8	63%
Charles Schwab	Charles Schwab	4.6	8.1	3.5	57%
Micky Arison	Carnival Cruise Line	4.5	9.7	5.2	46%
Jeff Bezos	Amazon	4.5	10.0	5.5	45%
Pierre Omidyar	eBay	4.4	7.2	2.8	61%
Michael Dell	Dell	4.2	7.6	3.4	56%
Daniel Ochs	Ochs Ziff	4.1	5.0	0.9	82%
Sumner Redstone	CBS, Via	3.6	6.0	2.4	60%
Steve Wynn	Wynn Resorts	2.9	4.3	1.4	68%
Tom Ward	SandRidge Energy	2.4	2.9	0.5	82%
Steve Jobs	Apple, Dis	2.3	4.9	2.6	46%
Mitchell & Steven Rales	Danaher	2.2	5.5	3.3	40%
Gordon Moore	Intel	2.1	4.8	2.7	44%
Ronda Stryker & family	Stryker Corp.	2.1	6.4	4.3	33%
Dan Duncan	Enterprsie Products	2.0	4.9	2.9	42%

Photo illustration by Hamish Robertson.

Photo credits: Bill Gates by Andy Mettler; Sergey Brin by James Duncan Davidson/O'Reilly Media; all others from AP Photos.