Bezos fortune jumps $6.5 billion in matter of hours

Jeff Bezos’s fortune struck an all-time in after-hours trading Tuesday after Amazon.com, Inc. reported the strongest holiday quarter sales growth in eight years.

The net worth of the world’s richest man had already risen $17.4 billion in the first month of the year, and he will see his wealth reach a record $123 billion on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index if the gain holds Friday.

Bezos had $116.4 billion on the index at the close of trading Thursday and the projected gain will more than wipe out his $4.9 billion loss that day.

The milestone comes after two days of wild swings for tech tycoons as their companies reported earnings. Mark Zuckerberg’s fortune rose $2.5 billion on Thursday as Facebook, Inc. reported strong fourth-quarter earnings. His fortune plummeted in after-market trading Wednesday, ultimately trading up as much as 4.2 percent the following day.

Alphabet Inc.’s Larry Page and Sergey Brin lost as much as $3 billion apiece in after-hours trading Thursday as fourth-quarter earnings missed analysts’ estimates, hobbled by rising payments to web-search partners, higher marketing expenses and troubles at YouTube.

The stock recouped much of the initial loss by 5 p.m. in New York.

Pierre Omidyar ended the day down about $100 million as his stake in Paypal Holdings, Inc. was cut by $400 million while the value of his EBay Inc. holdings rose $300 million.

The seesawing came after EBay unveiled plans to shift its payments business to Dutch company Adyen BV from Paypal.