Did you see, Cristiano Ronaldo moved the sponsorially mandated bottles of Coke off the table at his press conference yesterday, and urged viewers to "drink water"?
He did. And did you realize, that little gesture, which maybe you saw and chuckled over for a second, cost The Coca-Cola Company $4,000,000,000? It's true, I know because
I read it in The Athletic.
Now wait, you might be saying,
that's ludicrous. Like, that's obviously not true. Even taking half a second to think about would tell you it's absurd. That's something not even Darren Rovell would claim. But The Athletic (it's not clear exactly who, since the article was unbylined) did the math and it's unimpeachable:
Coca Cola's shares were worth $56.1 each when the market opened in Europe on Monday.
But by the end of the press conference, they had fallen to $55.2 each.
That is a 1.6 per cent drop in share price, which means a $4 billion loss in market value.
That said, Coca Cola is still worth $238.35 billion overall and the value has since risen back to $55.29 a share.
Checks out. I see no flaws here. The only reason a multinational conglomerate's stock price could go up or down is because of quasi-viral videos.