Warren Buffett: ‘2008 financial crisis more scary than 2020 one-two punch’

Warren Buffett has a huge following among professional investors around the world. He is probably the best active investor in the world. He has successfully picked stocks that ensure his investment vehicle type company, Berkshire Hathaway, outperform stock market indices year in and year out. And he has done this by steeling himself against panic and the herd mentality, selecting listed companies on the basis of their business models – which tend to ensure that they have wide moats – and valuations. Buffett reckons recent developments that have seen global markets rocked by panic about coronavirus and an oil price war are bad – but not as bad as events that sparked the 2008 financial crash and tipped much of the world into recession. – Jackie Cameron

By Thulasizwe Sithole

One of the world's most successful investors, Warren Buffett, has witnessed the stock market roller coaster ride for more than six decades of investing. He reckons the recent "one-two punch of coronavirus panic and the oil price plunge wasn't as bad as the 2008 financial crash."

Writing for MarketWatch, editor and writer Shawn Langlois quotes Buffett saying of the recent shock: "It wasn't October 1987, but it was an imitation… [and the financial crisis] was much more scary, by far, than anything that happened [on Monday].'

"If you stick around long enough, you'll see everything in markets," he said from his Omaha headquarters in an interview with Yahoo Finance. "And it may have taken me to 89 years of age to throw this one into the experience, but the markets, if you have to be open second by second, they react to news in a big time way."

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