How Celebrities are moving the markets

Market signals can come from the unlikeliest of places – no less than a 140 character tweet by an individual can knock billions off the market capitalisation of a public firm that they have no official affiliation with. We look deeper into this phenomenon and highlight 5 instances where celebrity A-listers have shaken up the markets.

Trump, March 2018
It is well documented that Donald Trump is a trigger-happy tweeter, with limited afterthought put into the consequences of his words, no matter how controversial. From his election victory in November 2016, until January 2018, the Dow Jones index, oversaw a 35% rise. Touching on his impact on individual companies – take amazon; one of the biggest companies in the world - Trump has concerns that the company is too powerful and has criticized it over jobs and taxation. Shares fell 5% with over $30bn tumbling after reports surfaced on Axios that trump was considering using antitrust law to go after the company.
 

Kylie Jenner, February 2018
Back in February, it was reported that Kylie Jenner wiped $1.3 billion off of Snapchats market value. Her tweet, "Sooo does anyone else not open Snapchat anymore? Or is it just me... ugh this is so sad," saw the stock (SNAP Inc) fall 6% in a day.
Jenner was one of many who voiced their criticism of the social media apps redesign, and there is also a petition asking Snapchat to remove the redesign which has been signed by over 1.2million people. 
 

DJ Khaled and Oprah Winfrey, 2015, 2018, 2018
Weight Watchers (WTW) have seen a stock price boost in recent years thanks to names like DJ Khaled and the world famous Oprah Winfrey.
Upon announcing its partnership with Winfrey in 2015, Weight watchers share price doubled in a single day. Since then, the stock has skyrocketed by more than 574% including nearly 300% in 2017.
Earlier in 2018, stocks rose 7% when DJ Khaled was named as the new face of the brand.

Hilary Clinton, 2015
Our second influence of political circles - and one of the most powerful people in America – Hilary Clinton, spoke out about price gouging in the pharmaceutical industry in 2015. After prices for a drug called Daraprim rose from $13.50 to $750 overnight, Clinton branded it outrageous in a tweet, causing iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology ETF to
drop nearly 5%.
 

First Lady Michelle Obama, 2008-09
A firm favourite in the fashion stakes, Obama created the ‘Michelle Effect’, creating $2.7 billion in value for 29 companies simply by wearing their clothing. In fact, following an appearance at President Obama’s Nobel Peace prize ceremony, companies associated with her outfit saw $772 million in total gains over two days. European companies whose labels were features in Michelle Obamas appearances had share prices rise by 16.3%.