WARREN BUFFETT should be feeling smug proper now. Months earlier than American stockmarkets began sliding from file ranges in late February, as traders started to query President Donald Trump’s stewardship of the world’s largest economic system, the nonagenarian billionaire was cashing out of equities. In 2024 his industrial conglomerate, Berkshire Hathaway, offered a internet $134bn of shares, together with two-thirds of its $174bn stake in Apple. By the tip of March the S&P 500 index of America’s largest corporations was 9% down from its peak. So was the iPhone-maker. Berkshire, in the meantime, was sitting fairly on a ten% acquire—and a pile of money to make Scrooge McDuck blanch. Transformed into $100 payments, its $334bn in liquid belongings would fill 1,900 king-size mattresses. The web buzzed with memes about preternatural market timing.
