Oprah loses 26 pounds, gains $12.5M on Weight Watchers stock

Oprah Winfrey loves bread and investors love Oprah.

After the mogul tweeted a video of herself Tuesday afternoon proclaiming she had lost 26 pounds while eating bread every single day on a Weight Watchers diet, shares of the diet company (WTW) skyrocketed more than 20%, closing at $13.29 a share.

Just a half hour before the money-making tweet, which went out around noon, Weight Watchers’ stock was trading at $11.35 a share.

As a result, Oprah — who owns 6.4 million shares, or roughly 10% of the stock, according to data from S&P Capital IQ —earned $12.5 million dollars on a single tweet, or more than $3 million an hour.

Add in her 3.5 million Weight Watchers’ stock option, which she disclosed in October, and Oprah made a whopping $19.2 million Tuesday, or close to $5 million an hour.

Winfrey took a 10% stake in Weight Watchers last year — nearly 15% including options — a move that made investors giddy then too and has helped revive the struggling company. Shares moved more than 100% the day of her announcement, making Winfrey $70 million. Shares jumped again at the end of the year when Winfrey tweeted a video of herself talking about why she joined Weight Watchers, writing "let's do this together."

Weight Watchers shares soar on Oprah power

Hadley Malcolm on Twitter: @hadleypdxdc.