Are Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger Buying Now?

According to Jason Zweig’s Wall Street Journal column Friday morning, the answer is no.  Warren Buffett and Charlie Munger are NOT buying now.  They are waiting for the storm to pass.  This explains the silence from Warren Buffett.  They are being cautious with Berkshire’s (BRK-A, BRK-B) large cash position and are as uncertain about the outcome of this pandemic as anyone else.

Charlie Munger: “Nobody in America’s ever seen anything else like this.”This thing is different. Everybody talks as if they know what’s going to happen, and nobody knows what’s going to happen.” (Note: Munger was born in 1924 and was a teenager during the Great Depression of the 1930’s. Warren Buffett was born in 1930 and also lived through the Great Depression.)

He added, “I don’t think we’ll have a long-lasting Great Depression. I think government will be so active that we won’t have one like that. But we may have a different kind of a mess. All this money-printing may start bothering us.”

“I don’t think we know exactly what the macroeconomic consequences are going to be,” said Mr. Munger. “I do think, sooner or later, we’ll have an economy back, which will be a moderate economy. It’s quite possible that never again—not again in a long time—will we have a level of employment again like we just lost. We may never get that back for all practical purposes. I don’t know.”