Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway has dumped the shares of banks and other financial companies while buying shares of Barrick Gold during the quarter that ended on 1 July.
This investment came as a huge surprise to many given how Warren Buffett has constantly criticized gold in the past. Back in 2011, for instance, the Oracle of Omaha said the precious alloy was “neither of much use nor procreative”.
Former L/S Equities Portfolio Manager Travis Kling observed Warren Buffett’s previous skepticism towards gold that has now changed as his company Berkshire Hathaway invests in gold stocks in a tweet, saying:
“Today it was announced Berkshire Hathaway just bought its first gold stock ever. The reasons are self-apparent at this point. Just in case you’re wondering what the coming years are going to look like for #Bitcoin, this was Buffett on gold in 1998.”
As for how what this investment could mean for Bitcoin, permabull Max Keiser has suggested that it could drive the price of bitcoin to $50,000.
Warren Buffett Is Betting Less On Banks, A Little Bit More On Gold
Berkshire Hathaway has been trimming off its holdings in banking stocks. According to a Friday filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Berkshire has dumped its shares in Goldman Sachs. Additionally, the firm also significantly reduced its stake in JPMorgan & Chase, PNC Financial Services, and Wells Fargo.
Berkshire instead bought the shares of a Toronto-based gold mining behemoth Barrick Gold which is currently valued at over $562 million. The stock’s price has jumped more than 40% since the start of the year. Moreover, Barrick’s stock rallied a further 7.1% on Friday following the announcement about Berkshire’s investment.
Buffett’s Gold Allocation Could Be The Beacon That Leads BTC To $50,000
According to bitcoin investor and host of Keiser Report, Max Keiser, bitcoin is primed to benefit from the recent investment into gold by Warren Buffett. As the veteran investor now moves to gold, Keiser expects more investors across the globe to follow suit.
In an August 15 tweet, the bitcoin bull posited that this means the price of gold will go up, and bitcoin which is now deemed a digital version of the precious metal will also surge to as high as $50,000.
It should be noted that bitcoin has outpaced gold on a year-to-date basis. Nonetheless, the king crypto is now correlated to gold than ever before. Just days ago, the Skew analytics firm pointed out that BTC’s correlation to gold had reached a jaw-dropping 70%.
Given the ongoing money printing sprees by central banks, it will come as no surprise if more investors pour millions into bitcoin and gold.
