Buffett, 95, warns the market has become a casino — while confirming he initiated Berkshire's Alphabet bet
TL;DR
Buffett says gambling now drives markets and value is scarce, while confirming he initiated the Alphabet bet.
Warren Buffett, 95, issued a rare direct criticism of a stock market increasingly driven by speculative trading. In a July 15 interview with CNBC's Becky Quick, he said, ‘It's tough to find values when everybody is preferring gambling.’
U.S. stocks have repeatedly reached record highs this year. CNBC cited speculation around AI stocks, one-day options, and leveraged ETFs; retail traders have also crowded into memory-chip maker Micron and SpaceX following its IPO. Buffett said opportunities sometimes arrive too quickly to process, while at other times an investor is ‘very, very lucky’ to find one thing in two years.
After Berkshire Hathaway's annual meeting in May, he compared markets to ‘a church with a casino attached’ and called one-day options neither investing nor speculation, but gambling. In July, he added: ‘Since humans love to gamble so much, there's more money in actually cultivating gamblers than there are cultivating investors.’
The same interview revealed that Buffett initiated Berkshire's investment in Google parent Alphabet. He said waiting so long to buy was a mistake, but Alphabet is not among his four or five favorite Berkshire-owned businesses. Google and its AI rivals are committing hundreds of billions of dollars to infrastructure, creating a new return test for the investor.
Buffett gave no date for a market crash. He said only about five of his 60 years in investing offered abundant opportunities. During the rest, Berkshire waits for the next phone call that nobody else wants to answer.
via CNBC / CNBC / TheStreet
U.S. stocks have repeatedly reached record highs this year. CNBC cited speculation around AI stocks, one-day options, and leveraged ETFs; retail traders have also crowded into memory-chip maker Micron and SpaceX following its IPO. Buffett said opportunities sometimes arrive too quickly to process, while at other times an investor is ‘very, very lucky’ to find one thing in two years.
After Berkshire Hathaway's annual meeting in May, he compared markets to ‘a church with a casino attached’ and called one-day options neither investing nor speculation, but gambling. In July, he added: ‘Since humans love to gamble so much, there's more money in actually cultivating gamblers than there are cultivating investors.’
The same interview revealed that Buffett initiated Berkshire's investment in Google parent Alphabet. He said waiting so long to buy was a mistake, but Alphabet is not among his four or five favorite Berkshire-owned businesses. Google and its AI rivals are committing hundreds of billions of dollars to infrastructure, creating a new return test for the investor.
Buffett gave no date for a market crash. He said only about five of his 60 years in investing offered abundant opportunities. During the rest, Berkshire waits for the next phone call that nobody else wants to answer.
via CNBC / CNBC / TheStreet
