Billionaires and corporate execs have dumped $9 billion worth of stock this year amid the market's latest rally
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- Billionaires and CEOs have dumped $9 billion in stock this year.
- Many of those sales have been concentrated in the tech sector amid Wall Street's frenzy over AI.
- Executives have cashed in on the rally as the S&P 500 recovers from a dismal 2022 performance.
Billionaires and corporate executives have dumped around $9 billion worth of stock this year, taking advantage of the latest market rally to cash in their holdings.
According to a report from CNBC, the biggest seller was the Walton family, the heirs to Walmart and Sam's Club. The family sold off $4.39 billion in Walmart shares during the first half of 2023, shedding their holdings as the retail giant gained 9% in the first six months of the year.
Meanwhile, AirBnB co-founder Joe Gebbia sold off $893 million of his company's stock during the first half. The home-sharing site's shares are up 59% since the start of the year.
Oracle chief technology officer Larry Ellison sold Oracle stock for the first time in two years, shedding $848 million in the first half. Oracle CEO Safra Catz also trimmed her holdings of the company, selling $470 million worth of the company's stock. Shares are up 37% from the start of the year.
Other big sellers include Salesforce's Marc Benioff, Moderna CEO Stephane Bancel, and Apollo co-founder Josh Harris, who each sold off around $200-$300 million shares of their companies' stock.
Meanwhile, insider buying on Wall Street has dropped to around half of the levels reported last year.
Big-name investors have moved to sell their shares amid an impressive rebound for stocks this year, with the S&P 500 up 15% from levels in January. Many of those sales have been concentrated in the tech sector, with large-cap tech stocks soaring amid massive excitement for artificial intelligence.
Though the S&P 500 officially entered a bull market in early June, some commentators have made the case that the upward momentum is unlikely to continue, thanks to tighter monetary policy and other headwinds to corporate earnings in the second-half of the year.
But as far as retail investors are concerned, the rally isn't over yet. Net inflows from individual investors into US equities are averaging around $1.4 billion a day, according to data from Vanda Research, close to the all time record of $1.5 billion a day in March 2022.