Preparing For A Crash? Warren Buffett Has Been Selling Off Hundreds Of Millions Of Shares In 2024

Preparing For A Crash: Warren Buffett Has Been Selling Off Hundreds Of Millions Of Shares In 2024

Michael Snyder

Warren Buffett did not become a billionaire by being stupid.  According to Forbes, Buffett is worth more than 144 billion dollars, and that makes him one of the wealthiest men in the entire world.  He made his money in the stock market, and so why is he now pulling money out of the stock market at a feverish pace?  Does he anticipate that a crash is coming?  Earlier this year, Buffett shocked the investing community when his company sold off half the Apple shares that it was holding…

Warren Buffett, the legendary investor known as the “Oracle of Omaha” (and “Fireball” by his father), is famous for his smart investment choices. So when it was revealed that his company, Berkshire Hathaway, sold half its Apple shares, many investors were puzzled, trying to understand what it meant.

The number of Apple shares that Berkshire Hathaway has dumped is absolutely astounding.

It is being reported that close to 500 million shares were sold during the first and second quarters combined…

In the first quarter of 2024, Berkshire Hathaway sold over 100 million Apple shares, and in the second quarter, they sold an additional 390 million shares.

More recently, Berkshire Hathaway has been selling off Bank of America shares…

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway (BRKa.N), opens new tab has trimmed its stake in Bank of America (BAC.N), opens new tab once again, making the total sales since mid-July nearly $7 billion.

The conglomerate, run by one of the world’s most revered investors, disclosed late on Thursday it sold 18.7 million shares of the second-largest U.S. bank between Sept. 3 and Sept. 5 to rake in roughly $760 million.

Buffett’s moves look quite savvy based on what has been happening so far this month.

In fact, we just witnessed the worst week for the S&P 500 since March 2023…

The S&P 500 dropped Friday, notching its worst week since March 2023, as investors assessed the fallout from a weak August jobs report and ditched leading technology stocks.

Will this week bring even more pain?

Right now, investors are concerned that the economy may be slowing, and those concerns were bolstered by Friday’s employment report.

Economists largely agree that the labor market is “cooling,” but one recruiting industry veteran says that is a significant understatement.

Brian Howard is the founder and president of the Howard Group, a boutique search firm located in Overland Park, Kansas, that has been in business for more than 30 years, which companies hire to recruit candidates in an array of white-collar positions.

He said the job market is in “bad shape.”

For many Americans, low-paying part-time jobs just won’t suffice because the cost of living just continues to go up.

Thanks to the rising cost of living, the percentage of U.S. households with children that are “food insecure” has risen to a very alarming level…

Now, the inflation crisis under the Biden-Harris administration has intensified this issue even more. It was especially families with children that suffered during Covid-19 as school lunches disappeared and they have been hardest hit again in 2022 and 2023.

As Statista’s Katharina Buchholz reports, the USDA just published its latest report on the issue, showing that last year, almost 18 percent of households where children lived were food insecure, up from 17.3 percent in 2022 and 12.5 percent in 2021.

In a lot of those households, at least one adult is actually working.

But in many cases there simply is not enough money coming in to even cover the basics.

At this point, working Americans have so little discretionary income to spare that even dollar stores are really struggling…

Dollar Tree stocks plunged to a 9-year low earlier this week, after the chain delivered a disappointing earnings report.

Earlier this year, the company announced it would close 600 Family Dollar stores in 2024, after it struggled to integrate the chain into its business.

Dollar General, which is the biggest dollar store in the US and is located mostly in low-income, rural areas, also reported dismal sales last month and saw its stock plummet.

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