Warren Buffett sees little to buy in the stock market after this year’s drop
March 31, 2026
Berkshire Hathaway chairman Warren Buffett said the company isn’t finding much to buy in the stock market after its decline this year.
In an interview on CNBC, Buffett said, “We aren’t finding things” in the stock market after the Dow Jones Industrial Average and Nasdaq Composite fell into correction territory with drops of 10% from their highs. The S&P 500 ended Monday down 7.5% this year.
Asked by CNBC anchor Becky Quick about the market decline, Buffett said, “This is nothing,” adding that the market had been down 50% three times during his tenure at Berkshire, dating back to 1965.
Buffett added that Berkshire would deploy capital if there is a big decline in the market. He noted that Berkshire has more than $350 billion of cash, mostly in Treasury bills. Buffett said Berkshire had purchased $17 billion of T-bills at the weekly auction on Monday.
Buffett, 95, said he can make equity investments at Berkshire but runs anything by CEO Greg Abel, who oversees the $300 billion equity portfolio as part of his responsibilities.
Buffett was succeeded by Abel as CEO at the end of 2025.
Buffett praised Abel, saying that “Greg covers more ground in a day than I would in a week” during his prime, noting that Berkshire owns some 200 businesses.
Buffett also addressed the Jeffrey Epstein files and his annual donations to the Gates Foundation, saying he will “wait and see” about making future annual contributions to the foundations. His next big annual donations will come in June.
The Gates Foundation is headed by Bill Gates, who has been the subject of unfavorable publicity due to his association with Epstein including added details in the latest batch of Epstein files.
Buffett has given almost $50 billion to the Gates Foundation in annual donations since 2006, including about $5 billion last June. Buffett said in 2024 that his donations to the foundation would end after his death—reversing his original pledge at the time he began making the donations in 2006. Buffett was asked about his views on the Gates Foundation and Gates and answered cautiously.
Buffett said he hasn’t met or spoken with Gates since the files were released. Buffett said the files were read to him because he can’t read them himself because his “eyesight is so bad.”
Buffett noted that the Gates Foundation has enormous resources of $96 billion—the most of any foundation—largely from Bill Gates’ fortune from his Microsoft stock and other investments.
The other beneficiaries of Buffett’s philanthropic giving are family foundations, including three run by each of his three children. Those foundations will be recipients of the Buffett fortune of around $140 billion after his death.
Buffett said that it was a good thing that Epstein never came through Omaha, since there would have been a chance that Buffett would have met him and potentially have been photographed with him. Buffett said he never met Epstein.
Buffett added that Gates had treated him well personally, including getting the kind of food Buffett likes on trips and even arranging for Buffett to get The Wall Street Journal when they went to China.
Write to Andrew Bary at andrew.bary@barrons.com
Search
RECENT PRESS RELEASES
