Even Buffet is Loosing Money in Stock meltdown.

Here's something that might provide a bit of solace amid the plunging values in your retirement accounts: Warren Buffett is losing lots of money, too.

So are Kirk Kerkorian, Carl Icahn and Sumner Redstone.

They are still plenty rich, but their losses—some on paper and others actually realized—illustrate how few have been spared in today's punishing market when even big-name investors, corporate executives and hedge-fund titans are all watching their wealth evaporate.

The portfolio damage for some of these high-flyers has soared to billions of dollars in recent months. And they can't just blame the market's downdraft—some did themselves in with badly timed stock purchases or margin calls on shares bought with loans.

"It's always hard to beat the market no matter who you are," said Robert Hansen, senior associate dean at Dartmouth's Tuck School of Business. "But when the ocean waters get that rough, it is hard for any boat to avoid getting swamped."

It has been a painful year for anyone exposed to the stock market.

The Standard & Poor's 500 stock index, considered a barometer for the broad market, has lost about 36 percent since January, with every single sector—including once thriving energy and utilities—seeing declines of about 20 percent or more.

Such losses in the last year have wiped out an estimated $2 trillion in equity value from 401(k) and individual retirement accounts, nearly half the holdings in those plans, according to new findings by the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College