Warren Buffett Explains Why He’s Holding $300 Billion in Cash | Berkshire 2025

U this next question comes from Advate

Prasad in New York. He writes, "Today,

Bergkshire holds over $300 billion in

cash and short-term investments

representing about 27% of total assets,

a historically high figure compared to

the 13% average over the last 25 years.

This has also led Berkshire to

effectively own nearly 5% of the entire

US Treasury market. Beyond the need for

liquidity to meet insurance obligations,

is the decision to raise cash primarily

a d-risking strategy in response to high

market valuations?

Or is it also a deliberate effort to

position Birkshar's balance sheet for a

smooth smoother leadership transition,

providing Greg Ael with maximum

flexibility and a clean slate for future

capital allocation decisions? And I will

add one line from another shareholder,

Mike Conway, who asks, "Are you

encouraged you may see some fat pitches

coming your way?"

>> Yeah. Well,

I wouldn't do anything nearly so noble

as to withhold investing myself just so

that Greg could look good later on.

[Applause]

Now, if he if he gets any edge when I

leave, I'll resent it. So, the uh

now the the amount of cash we have, we

we we would spend well, we came pretty

close to spending 10 billion not that

long ago, for example, but we'd spend a

h 100red billion. I mean, and and those

decisions are not tough to make. uh when

when something is offered that is that

uh makes sense to us and that we

understand and uh offers good value and

where we don't worry about losing and

the one problem with the investment

business is that things don't come along

in an orderly fashion and they never

will. I mean, it isn't like every day.

Uh, you know, the the long-term record

is sensational, but that is not a

product. And I've been in,

let's see, I've had um 200 trading days

times

80 years. And I mean, 16,000 trading

days. It It would be nice if every day

you got four opportunities or something

like that. And you know you could and

they were expected to be equally

attractive.

You know if I if I was running a numbers

racket you know every day would have the

same expectancy of that I would keep

40% of whatever the handle was. And so

the only question would be is how much

we transacted but we're not running that

kind of a business. And so we're running

a business which is very very very

opportunistic.

And Charlie always thought I did too

many things. He thought if we did about

five things in our lifetime we we could

we could uh we'd end up doing better

than if we did 50 and and uh and that we

never concentrated enough. Uh so that

we would rather have

if we've got 335 billion now in

treasuries,

we would rather have conditions that are

developed where we would have like 50

billion or something like that. But that

that just isn't the way the business

works. And

we have made a lot of money by not

wanting to be fully invested at all

times. And uh we don't think it's

improper actually for people who are

passive investors just to make a few

simple investments and sit with their

life uh sit for their life in them. But

we made the decision to be in the

business. So uh we think we can do a

little better than that

by behaving in a very irregular manner.

But if you told me that I had to invest

uh

well our

let's say that we have a roughly 40

billion a year coming in and we start

with 335. If you told me I had to invest

50 billion every year till we got down

to 50 billion that would be the dumbest

thing in the world

to invest in that manner. things get

extraordinarily attractive

very occasionally.

The long-term trend is up. Nobody knows.

And uh I certainly don't know. Greg

doesn't know. Ajet doesn't know. Nobody

knows what the market is going to do

tomorrow, next week, next month. And

nobody knows what business is going to

do tomorrow, next week, or next month.

But they spend all their time talking

about it because it's easy to talk

about. But it it it has no value. Uh

I've never found anybody I wanted to

listen to on the subject. And uh the on

the other hand, I found that leafing

through things like that big Japanese

book that I can't read anymore. Uh

that's a treasure hunt. And every now

and then you find something and

occasionally

very occasionally but it'll happen again

that uh I don't know when

it won't it could be next week it could

be 5 years off but it won't be 50 years

off. He will have we will be bombarded

with offerings that we'll be glad we

have the cash for. And it'd be a lot

more fun if what would happen tomorrow,

but it's very unlikely to happen

tomorrow. Very, very unlikely to happen

tomorrow. But it's not unlikely to

happen in 5 years. And then it gets the

probabilities get higher as you go

along. It's kind of like death. I mean,

if you're 10 years old, the chances that

you're going to die the next day are

low. If you get to be

15 or something like that, it's almost a

cinch.

Particularly if you're a male. I mean,

all the records are held by females in

terms of age. And uh

I tried to get Charlie to have a sex

change so he could test out whether

and uh

he did pretty well for being a male.

I'll put it that way.