Legendary investor Warren Buffett is no longer the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway Inc (NYSE:BRK)(NYSE:BRK), but remains active as Executive Chairman at providing investment ideas for the conglomerate and new CEO Greg Abel. These days, Buffett says its tough to find value in the stock market.
Buffett on Stock Market Valuations
Berkshire Hathaway underperformed the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (NYSE:SPY), which tracks the S&P 500, in 2025. The underperformance could continue in 2026 with Berkshire Hathaway sitting on a cash and short-term investment holding balance nearing $400 billion.
That $397 billion continues to sit on the sidelines as stocks hit record highs across many sectors.
Buffett said he fails to see value in many investments and thinks the stock market is getting closer to a casino.
"It’s tough to find values when everybody is preferring gambling," Buffett told CNBC Wednesday.
The legendary investor said the market today is driven more by speculative trading and not long-term investing.
"There are times when opportunities are just thrown at you so fast you can’t, you know, it’s unbelievable. There’s other times when you’re very, very lucky if you find one thing in a couple of years. And it should always be that the, the latter is what prevails."
Buffett said that humans like to gamble, which means there’s more money in "cultivating gamblers than there are cultivating investors."
In the first quarter, Berkshire Hathaway took new positions in three stocks, believing there was value upside in companies like Delta Air Lines, Alphabet and Macy’s. The company also sold off many old positions and took the overall investment portfolio from 42 positions to 29.
The company’s continued bet on holding cash and looking for value has the stock underperforming (-1.4%) against the S&P 500 (+10.0%) once again in 2026.
Buffett vs. Stock Market Trends
Buffett has become more outspoken about the recent stock market trends and shifting investor appetite.
In May, he compared the stock market to "a church with a casino attached." The legendary investor was critical of new investment instruments like one-day options, which he called "gambling" rather than investing.
Back in 2021, Buffett was critical of the role that online brokerages like Robinhood Global (NASDAQ:HOOD) were having on changes to investing.
"Robinhood has become a very significant part of the casino aspect of the casino group that has joined into the stock market in the last year or year and a half," Buffett said at the time.
Buffett said what Robinhood is doing isn’t immoral or illegal but cautioned that it is capitalizing on investors who are gambling on the stock market.
"I think the degree to which a very rich society can reward people who know how to take advantage, essentially, of the gambling instincts of the American public, the worldwide public — it’s not the most admirable part of the accomplishment."
Whether Buffett’s value discipline pays off again — or leaves Berkshire trailing a momentum-driven market — remains the open question for the rest of 2026.
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