Warren Buffett Touted America. Too Bad He Didn't Buy.
In the depths of the pandemic, the Oracle of Omaha said don’t bet against the U.S. And yet he was a net seller as markets surged.
Everyone makes mistakes, even Warren Buffett.
Photographer: Daniel Acker/BloombergWarren Buffett is feeling much better since “the economy went off a cliff” last March. He admits he might be even happier if he had used that opportunity to invest some of the $145 billion of cash Berkshire Hathaway Inc. has been hoarding.
Berkshire revealed that it sold stocks again last quarter, bringing the total net value of equities it has dumped since the outset of the Covid-19 pandemic to more than $12 billion. The benchmark S&P 500 index returned about 26% over that span — double what Berkshire shares did. And as Apple Inc. gained 80%, becoming a $2 trillion company, Berkshire sold some of its Apple shares. That was a mistake, Buffett said, to which his longtime business partner Charlie Munger resoundingly (if half-jokingly) declared, “Yes!” The two say they’ve never had a fight in their sixty-plus years working together, but in that moment their cute claim seemed slightly less plausible.