OREANDA-NEWS. The total fortune of billionaires on the planet in 2018 fell by $ 8.5 trillion after five years of steady growth. The reasons were a strong dollar and stock market volatility. This is stated in a report published on Friday by the Swiss bank UBS and the international network of consulting companies PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).

It's noted that "due to the strong dollar and stock market volatility, the state of billionaires decreased by $ 8.5 trillion after five years of growth". However, it's emphasized that the situation in different regions of the world isn't the same. Asia has recorded a decline in the wealth of billionaires "after five years of substantial growth, during which their fortune has quadrupled". At the same time, in the Americas it has grown slightly over the past year.

In general, despite last year’s global correction, the total state of billionaires is now more than a third (34.5%) higher than five years ago, the authors of the study say. In particular, American billionaires, whose business interests lie in the technology sector, achieved greater success last year than entrepreneurs working in other areas of the economy, the authors of the report indicate. Over the past five years, the number of women billionaires in the world has grown by 46%.