Oprah Winfrey may not be as visible on television these days as she had before but that doesn't seem to have diminished her bankability as an endorser. Not one bit.
Lady O made $12 million in a little over an hour on Tuesday for merely tweeting about her love of bread and how eating it has helped her lose weight.
"I lost 26 pounds, and I have eaten bread every single day," Winfrey said in the video clip that accompanied her post.
Hours after Winfrey sent out her tweet, Weight Watchers shares increased by as much as 20 percent, ending up at $13.37.
Eat bread. Lose weight. Whaaatttt? #ComeJoinMe https://t.co/jUgpk9ToXY https://t.co/xtnB53EwSf
— Oprah Winfrey (@Oprah) January 26, 2016
Since Winfrey owns about 6.4 million shares of the weight loss company, the media mogul stands to earn about $12 million from the recent surge in share prices.
Some observers believe this event is a continuation of a trend in which Weight Watchers' stocks seem to increase whenever Winfrey reveals that her weight has gone down.
The company experienced a similar increase in its shares in October after Winfrey revealed during a guesting on "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" that she had lost 15 pounds through the weight loss program. Winfrey had just bought a 10 percent stake of Weight Watchers at the time.
Despite the recent jump in shares, Weight Watchers has been struggling to deal with competition from smartphone-based fitness trackers and free diet apps over the past few years.
Before Winfrey's announcement in October, the company's stocks were trading for less than $7 per share. It more than doubled to above $15 almost immediately after news of Winfrey's involvement with the company became public.
Weight Watchers' stocks reached as high as $28 in November but they have since cooled off and settled to about $13. This includes Tuesday's sudden price jump.
The weight loss company's chief executive Jim Chambers revealed in November that they were able to notice a significant increase in the number of users to their website as a result of Winfrey's endorsement.
However, some investors have since wondered whether the media mogul's involvement with Weight Watchers would translate to a jump in the number of paying members as well.
Weight Watchers also faced controversy on social media regarding one of Winfrey's TV ads for the company, which began airing in December.
In the ad, Winfrey said that "inside every overweight woman is a woman she knows she can be." Some women on Twitter took offense from the line, stating that they do not have to lose weight in order to become the woman they want to be.
The increase in Weight Watchers' shares on Tuesday suggests that some investors were not focused on the social media controversy.
