Investing legend Warren Buffett bemoaned the gambling culture that has taken over financial markets while continuing to preach his brand of patience.
Buffett stepped down as CEO at the end of last year, but he remains involved in the investment portfolio—and still doesn’t like the prices that he’s seeing.
That’s due in part to investors acting like they’re playing a card game. To be sure, he’s long compared financial markets to a church with a casino attached. But the casino has gotten very attractive, he told CNBC.
Buffett pointed to the growing popularity of one-day options, saying, “That’s not investing. It’s not speculating. It’s gambling, just totally.”
Meanwhile, college and professional athletes have also been caught trying to manipulate prediction markets as online sports betting has exploded.
“And the quantity of those things is just incredible,” Buffett said. “So we’ve never had people in a more gambling mood than now. But that doesn’t mean that investing is terrible. It does mean that prices for an awful lot of things will look very silly.”
He has famously said the best time to buy is during steep downturns, urging investors to “be fearful when others are greedy, and greedy when others are fearful.”
Buffett, who is still Berkshire’s chairman, reiterated that advice Saturday and said the most likely time to buy is when nobody will answer their phones because the markets are collapsing.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent also pushed back recently against the get-rich-quick mindset many Americans have, warning it often leads to more financial instability.
The billionaire former hedge fund manager has even made financial literacy a priority since joining President Donald Trump’s administration, driven by a childhood marred by poverty.
”The best thing you can do is not play the lottery,” he said — rather, people should invest and “then watch it grow.”
