The U.K.'s referendum to leave the European Union was a costly decision in more ways than one.
Worldwide markets hemorrhaged more than $2 trillion in paper wealth on Friday, according to data from S&P Global, the worst on record. For context, that figure eclipsed the whipsaw trading sessions of the 2008 financial crisis, according to S&P analyst Howard Silverblatt.
The prior one day sell-off record was $1.9 trillion back in September of 2008, Silverblatt noted. According to S&P's Broad Market Index, combined market capitalization is currently worth nearly $42 trillion.
As bourses sold off from Asia to the U.S., the fallout from Brexit culminated in the Dow Jones Industrial Average racking up a 600 point loss. Bloomberg's Billionaires Index noted that the world's 400 wealthiest investors lost a combined $127 billion in Friday's market downturn.
"Brexit is the biggest global monetary shock since 2008," said David Beckworth, a scholar at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, in a blog post on Friday. "This could be the tipping point that turns the existing global slowdown of 2016 into a global recession."
On Sunday, noted economist Nouriel Roubini said the U.K.'s departure from Europe may lead to the break-up of the entire 28-trading bloc. His comments echoed those of billionaire investor George Soros, who wrote that a dissolution of the EU was "practically irreversible."
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