Warren Buffett makes stunning move by selling S&P 500 funds he told everyone to buy
Story by Tilly Armstrong Deputy Consumer Editor For Dailymail.Com
Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway has sold its holdings in funds tracking the S&P 500, in his latest retreat from the stock market.
The conglomerate dissolved its shares in two exchange-traded funds, or ETFs, from major investment companies Vanguard and State Street Global Advisors.
ETFs are a collection of stocks or bonds in a single fund which track an index like the S&P 500, Nasdaq or Dow Jones. The S&P 500 is an index of the 500 largest companies in the US.
Each of Berkshire's ETF holdings was valued at roughly $22 million, according to the Financial Times, and were liquidated in the fourth quarter of 2024.
It leaves 94-year-old Buffett with no ETF holdings, despite the investor speaking highly of the funds in the past, and encouraging others to buy into them.
In Berkshire's annual shareholder letter in 2016, Buffett said he recommended 'low-cost index funds', and preferred them to hedge funds.
'When trillions of dollars are managed by Wall Streeters charging high fees, it will usually be the managers who reap outsized profits, not the clients,' he said at the time.
In the same letter, Buffett also hailed Vanguard founder Jack Bogle as 'the person who has done the most for American investors.'
The sale of the ETFs underscores a larger trend at Berkshire which has seen the company sell off stocks and hoard cash.
At the end of last year, the company held its largest cash position on record - at $334.2 billion.
Some investors are concerned that Buffett's cash holdings indicate that he is retreating from the stock market as he sees it as overvalued - or if he knows something they don't about an impending crash.
US stocks have faltered in recent weeks, amid concerns around Donald Trump's tariff plans, sticky inflation and a potentially slowing economy.
Some investors fear the S&P 500 is too reliant on a handful of expensive technology stocks.
In his annual letter released earlier this month, the so-called Oracle of Omaha sought to brush off this speculation.
'Despite what some commentators currently view as an extraordinary cash position at Berkshire, the great majority of your money remains in equities,' he said.
'That preference won't change.'
While Berkshire may have dumped ETFs tracking the S&P 500, he still owns plenty of the individual stocks.
Despite selling off some holdings in Bank of America and Apple last year, for example, he still holds billions of dollars-worth of stocks in the companies.