Oil Crash Wipes Out $1.3tn in Value

It’s the oil crash few saw coming, and few have been spared as it erased $1.3 trillion.

Since June 2014, the combined market capitalization of 157 energy companies listed in the MSCI World Energy Sector Index or the Bloomberg Intelligence North America Independent Explorers & Producers Index has lost about $1.3 trillion.

If crude rebounds, investors may make some of their money back, though values may not recover as quickly as they fell. After the tech bubble burst in 2000, erasing $7 trillion from the Nasdaq Composite Index, it took almost 15 years for the market to return to its pre-crash level.

State pension funds and insurance companies have also been hard hit. Investment advisers, who manage the mutual funds and exchange-traded products that are staples of many retirement plans, had $1.8 trillion tied to energy stocks in June 2014.

The California Public Employees Retirement System, a $303 billion fund that provides benefits to 1.72 million people, owned a $91.8 million slice of Pioneer Natural Resources Co. in June 2014. At the time, Pioneer was a $33 billion company and one of the biggest shale producers in Texas. Today, Pioneer is worth $19 billion and Calpers’ stake has lost about $40 million in market value.