Jeff Bezos became the world’s richest man on Thursday morning, July 27, following a surge in Amazon.com Inc. shares in advance of the online retail giant’s earnings report, Bloomberg reported.
Amazon’s shares ticked up 1.3 percent to $1,065.92 at 10:10 a.m. in New York, handing Bezos a net worth of $90.9 billion, compared to Gates’s $90.7 billion.
If the Amazon share price holds or rises by 4 p.m. today, Bezos will secure the top spot on the Bloomberg Billionaire Index, which Gates has held since May 2013.
The top 10 people on the current list (before the 4 p.m. update) are as follows:
Bezos owns about 17 percent of Amazon’s stock. The retail giant’s shares climbed 40 percent this year, adding $24.5 billion to Bezos’s net worth.
Investors will be looking at several indicators in the upcoming Amazon earnings report, key among which is how many $99 Amazon Prime subscriptions the company sold. Prime customers get free two-day shipping and tend to spend more than other customers.
“Amazon Prime is why so much physical retail is going away,” said Michael Pachter, a Wedbush Securities Inc. analyst who has a buy rating on the Amazon stock and a price target of $1,250.
“Anyone who joins Prime shops in retail stores 10 percent less, and that number will keep accelerating as Amazon adds more inventory,” he said.
Analysts expect Amazon to post a quarterly revenue of $37.2 billion, up 22 percent from the same time last year.
Bezos started 2017 ranked fourth on the Bloomberg index and has since surpassed Warren Buffet, 86, of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. and Amancio Ortega, 81, founder of Inditex SA.
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