Trump's Billionaire Backers Lose 2018 Gains After Market Swoon

(Bloomberg) -- It’s been a rough February, even for President Trump’s biggest financial backers.

The 24 people tracked by the Bloomberg Billionaires Index who collectively gave $29.3 million to his election campaign and related political groups have seen their fortunes cut by $11.6 billion since the S&P 500 Index peaked on Jan. 26. The market swoon that followed wiped out all of their gains for the year.

Las Vegas Sands Corp.’s Sheldon Adelson took the biggest hit, with his fortune dropping by $2 billion to $37 billion from the market peak through Monday’s close. Wildcatter Harold Hamm lost $1.8 billion and Home Depot Inc. co-founder Bernie Marcus dropped $1 billion.

The recent decline left the group of two dozen with a combined fortune of $218 billion through Feb. 12, according to the Bloomberg ranking. That’s up $27 billion since the 2016 election.

--With assistance from Brendan Coffey

To contact the reporters on this story: Tom Metcalf in New York at tmetcalf7@bloomberg.net, Jack Witzig in Princeton at jwitzig@bloomberg.net.

To contact the editors responsible for this story: Alan Goldstein at agoldstein5@bloomberg.net, Peter Eichenbaum, Dan Reichl

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