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Comment by Invictus0 | Hacker News Reader

Gates, Arnault, and Bezos each have had more than 100B, although not liquid.

Not really. Adding up all the shares that they own, and saying that they have that much money, is completely incorrect. If any of them tried to liquidate even a small part of their shareholding the price would go swiftly to zero.

They can borrow money with their stock as collateral (explicit or implicit). They only need the liquidity to cover interest.

btw take a look at Gates' portfolio. He's as liquid as it get's at that level.

Bezos does so every year in order to finance blue origin.

Yes, but a little bit every year != all at once. Selling off a bit every year, you can likely find a welcome market. Sell everything at once, the market will tank/disappear or go for an extreme loss. He probably wouldn't even be able to find a buyer(s) if he decided to sell off completely today.

The price would go down, sure, but the chance of it going to zero are... very close to zero. People aren't investing because these folks have shares, they're investing (at least in part) in the underlying value and forward numbers for the company.

I guarantee that 100% of any of their shares would be swiftly picked up if they were sold at a 5%+ discount to the 52-week low stock price.

I would equally guarantee that they won´t be, simply because there isn´t actually enough actual money to buy them all.

Markets are a real time pricing mechanism - they operate on instantaneous availability of both money and shares. Put enough shares out on the supply side, is the equivalent of flooding the demand side with money a. la. hyperinflation. In both cases, the good in question becomes effectively valueless.

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