Warren Buffett appears to have finally felt the impact of the ongoing economic crisis after his company Berkshire Hathaway, confirmed the sale of airline stocks.
The Berkshire Hathaway owner and CEO has remained strongly bullish on the financial markets despite the negative forecast of the COVID-19 pandemic. However, it seems the pressure has caught up with him forcing to go back on his words and finally bulging to the market sentiment.
Buffett claimed Berkshire Hathaway would not sell airline stocks
Just three weeks ago, Buffett said that he relishes airline stocks despite a dark cloud hanging over the industry in the aftermath of the worldwide coronavirus spread. The Berkshire Hathaway told Yahoo Finance that he would not be selling airline stocks during an interview on the 13th of March.
At the time of the interview, the investment firm held large stakes in multiple airlines exposing it to potentially huge losses in the case of a significant market plunge. Berkshire Hathaway airline stock portfolio included over 53 million Southwest shares, 42 American Airlines shares, 21.9 million United airline shares and 71.8 million Delta shares.
Buffett appeared to be optimistic about his firm’s position by acquiring more Delta shares in late February. However, the effects of the coronavirus wiped out about 27.5% of these shares in just two weeks by the time of the interview. Regardless Buffett insisted that his firm would hold their position as they had anticipated a pandemic to occur at any time.
Buffett caves under pressure
It seems that Buffett’s position did not hold for long as Berkshire Hathaway sold airline stocks worth nearly $390 million on Friday. This sale occurred following the decline in passenger numbers across multiple airlines as travel fell due to efforts of controlling coronavirus spread.
The sale and Buffett’s backtrack did not go unnoticed in the crypto world with Morgan Creek’s Pompliano tweeting that risk can catch up to even the best.
Exactly 3 weeks ago Warren Buffett told Yahoo Finance that he would not be selling airline stocks.
— Pomp
Today Berkshire Hathaway revealed that they are selling some of their airline stocks.
Risk can catch up to anyone and even the best can be forced to quickly change their minds.(@APompliano) April 4, 2020
A number of crypto community members agreed with the tweet as they looked to antagonize the renowned investor who is a huge Bitcoin critic. Binance CEO, CZ, weighed in on the news tweeting that he thinks Buffett’s grandsons will prefer Bitcoin over mainstream assets sold on conventional financial markets.
I think his grandsons will prefer #bitcoin.
— CZ Binance(@cz_binance) April 4, 2020
CZ tweet garnered great support with the crypto community suggesting that Bitcoin investment is the future which older investors like Buffett could not easily figure out.
