It didn’t go anywhere, that money was “unrealized”. It’s quite literally just what people think the shares are worth and a dollar amount associated with what people agree to pay for owning it.
Imagine if I own a priceless antique. I can value it myself at $1,000,000,000. That doesn’t make me a billionaire, except maybe on paper or insurance documents perhaps. It also doesn’t mean that people are out there buying billion dollar antiques from me, that’s just what I think it’s worth, although I’d be unlikely to sell it if someone wasn’t going to pay me at least close to what I thought it was worth.
If I get the antique appraised and they tell me that, actually, it’s only worth about $100 fair market value, then $999,999,900 was just wiped out. But the rest of that cash valuation isn’t floating around in the ether somewhere, the true value of the item simply did not match my own valuation, and the antique market shifted to correct for my gross overvaluation.
It didn’t go anywhere, that money was “unrealized”. It’s quite literally just what people think the shares are worth and a dollar amount associated with what people agree to pay for owning it.
Imagine if I own a priceless antique. I can value it myself at $1,000,000,000. That doesn’t make me a billionaire, except maybe on paper or insurance documents perhaps. It also doesn’t mean that people are out there buying billion dollar antiques from me, that’s just what I think it’s worth, although I’d be unlikely to sell it if someone wasn’t going to pay me at least close to what I thought it was worth.
If I get the antique appraised and they tell me that, actually, it’s only worth about $100 fair market value, then $999,999,900 was just wiped out. But the rest of that cash valuation isn’t floating around in the ether somewhere, the true value of the item simply did not match my own valuation, and the antique market shifted to correct for my gross overvaluation.
That’s essentially what happened yesterday.