Amazon share price

Last October Amazon stock was priced at $1,900 and then they announced that they would start paying $15 per hour minimum wage and last Friday the stock closed at $1,600. Since there are 271 million outstanding shares this represents an $80 billion dollar loss to shareholders. Jeff Bezos the largest shareholder lost $24 billion. This is not proof that the wage situation caused the drop in stock price but it does pose the question. Since Amazon does not pay a dividend the owners of stock buy it on the premise that the stock will go up in value. Those who have owned the stock for some time are still way ahead since the stock was selling at $350 per share five years ago.