Warren Buffett Dumping $13bn Worth of Stock Rings Alarm Bells Over Economy
Warren Buffett's firm Berkshire Hathaway has sold billions of dollars' worth of U.S. stocks in the first three months of the year, raising concerns among investors over the state of the slowing U.S. economy.
Nebraska-based Buffett, who is considered one of the greatest investors of all time, spoke to shareholders last week together with Berkshire's vice chairs Gregory Abel and Ajit Jain.
The trio revealed that their firm sold shares worth $13.3 billion in the first quarter of 2023 and invested a fraction of that same figure in the U.S. equity market, as reported by the Financial Times. Berkshire instead invested $4.4 billion in repurchasing its own stock and put $2.9 billion into the shares of other publicly traded businesses.
For Steve H. Hanke, a professor of applied economics at Johns Hopkins University, Berkshire's move signals that Buffett, whose famed ability to guess the state of the market has given him the nickname the Oracle of Omaha, is once again very perceptive regarding the health of the U.S. economy.