Forbes responds to Bloomberg with real-time billionaire tracker

In March, Bloomberg News introduced its new ranking of the world’s richest people with the release of its Bloomberg Billionaires Index, a daily ranking of the world’s 20 wealthiest individuals. It recently expanded the ranking to the top 40.

Now, Forbes magazine, which has long been considered the business news media that follows billionaires, has responded with a new feature called the Real-Time Billionaire Tracker, which follows the ups and downs of some of the 50 richest people in the world.

Luisa Kroll, senior wealth editor of Forbes, writes, “Track the biggest gains and losses of the day for the public holdings of a select group of 50 high-profile billionaires. The value of the billionaires’ major stock holdings, up to three maximum and each worth at least $700 million, are updated on a 15-minute delay every five minutes from the time the New York Stock Exchange opens at 9:30 a.m. until trading ends at 4 p.m. When the market isn’t open, the numbers will show snapshots captured as of the last market close.

“These figures reflect the changes in people’s top U.S. public holdings, not their total net worth.  They do not include the value of any additional U.S. public holdings beyond a person’s three biggest. Because our data provider, Morningstar, only tracks US-traded stocks, we use ADRs for notable international billionaires. Foreign stocks that don’t have ADRs and private holdings are not counted.”

Read more here.