Warren Buffett stepped down as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway at the end of 2025. Together with this change in his professional life, he would also no longer hold court during Berkshire’s AGM (annual general meeting) that has traditionally been held in early-May each year. This means there’s less opportunity for the public to hear his thoughts about the financial markets and the world writ large.
So I was excited when he appeared for an hour-long interview session hosted by CNBC earlier this week. Here are my takeaways from the interview (passages in italics below are from the official transcript of the event):
1. The US stock market has not fallen much so far
QUICK: Well, let’s talk about that. The market has come down substantially.
BUFFETT: Not substantially.
QUICK: Well, you’ve got both the Dow and the Nasdaq in correction territory. It’s the worst performance on a quarterly basis for stocks in about four years. Do things look cheaper to you?
BUFFETT: No. Three times since I’ve taken over Berkshire, it’s gone down more than 50%. I mean, if you look at the markets, of the worst, probably was the 2007, 08′ period, although it was that one Monday, when you had 21% in a day. I mean, this is nothing. I mean—
QUICK: This is nothing to make you get excited and think there’s huge valuation—
BUFFETT: Well if they’re 5 or 6% cheaper, that doesn’t, we aren’t in it to make 5 or 6%…
2. Buffett’s happy to deploy capital for long-term investments if there’s a big decline, but he does not know what the market will do
QUICK: Are you waiting for the next big drop in the market to deploy that cash, and if so, when do you see that coming?
BUFFETT: Yeah, if there is a big decline, we will deploy, I mean, but we won’t, we will deploy it because stocks are attractive or businesses are attractive to us, and we are not planning to sell them next week or next month, so we want to be right on them. And we’ve had our American Express stock 30 years without having a — close to 40 years, 35 years. And on the other hand, there’s things I change my mind on fairly quickly, but, but the goal is own the owned businesses, and when we buy Occidental Chemical, we expect all of that 50 years from now. You know, the world can change in some way, but that we do not, we do not buy that with a thought of resale…
…BUFFETT: No, no, I don’t have any ability to predict what stocks will do next week or next month and I will buy them if they’re cheap. I’ll buy a whole lot of them if they’re cheap and I think I really understand the business, and Apple is still our largest single investment…
…BUFFETT: I mean, the idea that people think they know what the market’s going to do is just crazy. I mean, the idea that they would shout out to the world, you know, that something they really knew, I mean, that’s like saying if they had gold — found gold in their backyard, they’d come on television and say, here’s where the gold is in my backyard, you know? I mean, they’re selling something.
3. Railroads are more likely to be around 50-100 years from now than smartphones, but Apple is the company that earns the higher on capital
BUFFETT: Yeah, well, if I didn’t like it, I could sell it. Yeah, I can, I think it’s a remark — it’s better than any business we own outright. Now, we own a railroad that’s worth more money than our Apple position, for example, they’re both looked at the same way. I mean, they’re both, they’re both businesses. I expect the, I think it’s more predictable in a certain sense, that the railroad will be around 50 or 100 years from now, but it doesn’t earn the rate remotely on capital than Apple does. I mean, Apple is a business that you’ve got one, probably and your kids have got them, and—
QUICK: Not one, we’ve got like 20 of them.
BUFFET: Yeah, devices. Actually, the Bell Telephone Company was that way at one point, but they were regulated.
4. Buffett thinks US technology companies are too well-liked by consumers for them to face heavy regulation; Apple is a consumer company in Buffett’s eyes
QUICK: Well, do you worry about regulation coming for some of these big tech companies, in particular Apple?
BUFFETT: I think the consumers are in love with them too much. I don’t, I don’t think Washington will do anything that really destroys something that every one of their voters likes and they’re using themselves. I mean, it’s a remarkable product that way. Just think of something as useful as the Apple is…
…QUICK: You don’t necessarily follow tech companies and Apple, people look at as a tech company, but you always looked at as a consumer company.
BUFFET: It’s a consumer.
QUICK: Yeah.
BUFFETT: Company.
5. Buffett thinks the Federal Reserve’s biggest worry should be about the status of the US dollar as the world’s reserve currency
QUICK: Warren, let me ask you about the economy because the Fed is in a bit of a quandary right now, just trying to figure out which one of its mandates it’s more worried about. Is it worried about inflation potentially rising more. Is it worried about the jobs market and, you know, potential decline in economic output? What, what of those two issues would worry you most if you were at the Fed right now?
BUFFETT: Well, if I were at the Fed, the thing I’d worry about always is, you know, you’re the reserve currency of the world. I mean, so you’ve got very smart people, very sophisticated people, the American dollar looks like nothing could happen to it. I don’t feel anything could happen to it. But if it does happen to it, I would, I would, I wouldn’t want the responsibility of running the Fed.
6. Buffett would prefer the Federal Reserve to have a 0% inflation target instead of 2%; Buffett is concerned about inflation
QUICK: Did they keep rates low for too long? I mean, I think that’s, as they didn’t worry about inflation, as they said it was going to be transitory? Because I think even Powell himself said that he might wish he’d turned it sooner.
BUFFETT: Well, I wish they had a zero inflation target.
QUICK: Right.
BUFFETT: But, I mean, once you start saying you’re going to tolerate 2 percent, that compounds pretty dramatically over time. And you’re saying to people, if you’re getting less than 2 percent on your money, you’re going backwards. And, actually, if you pay tax, you may pay tax on the 2 percent. You know, I mean, I don’t like that particular goal. But—
QUICK: So, inflation is maybe what you’d be more concerned about? I mean, that’s what Greenspan, Alan Greenspan always said.
BUFFETT: Yes. I would be, I would care about inflation.
7. Buffett is concerned about the stability of banks, in particular, the inter-connectedness of the financial system; Buffett does not know enough about the private credit industry to opine on its effects on the banking system
BUFFETT: Yes. I would be, I would care about inflation. I would compare what I really would care about is the stability of the banks.
QUICK: Yes.
BUFFETT: I mean, the banking system, in some sense is very strong, in other sense, is very fragile. I mean, JPMorgan in the last couple annual reports reported doing $10 trillion of business per day. Now, that’s an unsecured policy. Now, they know what they’re doing. Believe me. I mean, there’s nobody smarter than JP– but I don’t want — I didn’t want — during the 2008 period, I didn’t want anything unsecured, you know, out there for a day. I mean, who knew? Nobody was any good. You know, I mean, it, the world is very interconnected and everybody panics. I mean, it, you know, they may say they don’t, but you can call the biggest investment banking firms and they say, well, they don’t answer the phone even if things get bad enough. And if they do answer the phone, you know, they say 10 bid, 20 offered subject.
QUICK: Yes. I mean, Joe will talk about that day that you mentioned in where the Dow was down 21 percent. I think he was, at that point, he said it himself. He was hiding under his desk for the calls that were coming in.
BUFFETT: Yes. And—
QUICK: Because when liquidity disappears, it disappears—
BUFFETT: 21 percent and that was some day, and it just kept coming. And most of the specialist firms, which then counted for more in terms of the stability of the markets. They were broke. I mean, as I remember, they went around to their banks and said, just don’t pull the loans, you know, but they, people, they were supposed to keep making markets, but people just kept hitting the bid and can widen the spread out. You got circuit breakers now, all kinds of things. But when people are scared, they’re scared. And people, if you yell fire in a crowded theater, everybody runs. Still, it still pays to beat people to the door, you know, and I can get trampled, you know, so, I will stand back there and say everybody to stay calm, you know? But that’s because I can’t run fast. On the other hand, when people come back into the theater, they come in one at a time. They know they don’t have to get into it. But when people panic, they panic.
QUICK: But is it the banking system we should be concerned about right now, or is it the shadow banking system, the private credit at this point?
BUFFETT: Well, it’s all parts of the banking system because they all affect each other and the troubles from one can spread over to another. And, well, you saw what happened, I mean, in 2008.
QUICK: But at risk of potentially, I don’t want people to say that you are commenting on what’s happening in the private credit situation right now. What do you think of the private credit situation right now? Are there enough concerning issues there that you worry that it could cause a contagion—
BUFFETT: I don’t think I know.
8. Buffett is always prepared for a wide range of outcomes by holding significant amounts of treasury bills, but he’s not thinking that there’s something on the horizon
BUFFETT: I don’t, I do not think I know what, but, therefore, I want to be prepared for anything, and, therefore, we will always have, we’ll always have cash around and we’ll have treasury bills. We won’t have money market funds. We didn’t have them in 2008. We won’t have commercial paper in 2008. There’s just one thing that’s legal tender. And, you know, if you own treasury bills, and we have known, we don’t own treasury bonds way out. I mean, but every Monday, the treasury has to sell bills. And as long as they got to sell, you know, X billions worth of bills, I mean, they kind of a, they can print some money to do it, and they’ll do it.
QUICK: But just to put a fine point on it, you don’t think you know what’s happening out there. You’ve had this huge cash forward north of $350 billion. It’s just there waiting for any time. It’s not that you necessarily think that there’s something on the horizon. It’s just the longer time goes—
BUFFETT: Oh, sure. No, I always want to have—
QUICK: Yes.
BUFFETT: Yes. And I never want to buy anything just because people think the market is going up.
9. Buffett’s worried about the possession of nuclear weapons by certain countries
BUFFETT: I took that pretty philosophically. I mean, I could handle that. And now, you’ve got nine countries, including, you know, a guy in North Korea. I mean, and there will be, something will happen. And we worried enormously about it when there were two. And we had perfectly, we had really pretty sane leaders in Kennedy and Khrushchev. You know, I mean, you were not dealing with unstable people or anything like that. And. You know, the ships turned around, but people were hiding under their desks with two. I mean, just think how you feel with North Korea having it and Iran wanting to get it. I mean, it — it is — and I don’t have an answer for that. I mean, we did the right thing in 1938 even or 1939. You can go look at it. It’s all over the Internet. The most important letter ever written. And Leo Szilard could not get the message to. He was a famous nuclear physicist. Terrific one. Very funny too. And he couldn’t get the message to Roosevelt, but he knew if Einstein signed the letter, that it would get there, and he finally got Einstein to sign the letter. And that letter was a month before the Germans started rolling into Poland. And I don’t think Roosevelt understood U-235 any better than I do. I mean, you know, but he knew if Einstein signed it, he better do something. And the funny thing is, of course, he was doing it because he was worried about the Germans getting it. And it was actually used on the Japanese. But it, we, we haven’t learned to live with it. Now, we’ve been — we’ve gone 80 years since then. We’ve had a lot of close calls. I mean, we’ve had training tapes put in there that that almost got the president to do something. They’ve had them. I mean, there is no way that the planet has an expectancy of 500 years now when it was 4.5 billion when I was a kid and we had to do it. I’m not faulting anybody. My dad was in Congress. He would have voted for it. I mean, everybody rejoiced on VJ day. You know, I mean, it — it — but there was no way we could undo it…
…QUICK: Yeah. So if you were the president today or if you were advising the president today, what would you say about going after the enriched uranium in Iran?
BUFFETT: I would say that one way or another. In the next 100 years, maybe it’s 200 years, who knows? But one way or another, something will happen that cause it to be used. And we can’t take what’s out there now. And if you thought it was dangerous with the Soviets and us with Khrushchev, who was perfectly rational guy, probably Kennedy, just wait until we, wait until we’re dealing with, you know, the guy in North Korea that criticizes haircut or something, I mean, or, or I would say the most dangerous thing is actually somebody that’s got their hand on the switch who is dying themselves or is facing enormous embarrassment if he figures if I go ever—
QUICK: If you’re cornered, yeah, if you’re cornered.
BUFFETT: Yeah.
QUICK: So that’s still rises to the level of one of the most important and—
BUFFETT: It is.
QUICK: Yeah.
BUFFETT: It’s just that I don’t know the answer for it. But I do know that the — it’ll be more difficult if Iran has the bomb than if they don’t.
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