All investors know who Warren Buffett is. He’s the embodiment of the ultimate “value investor” and has overseen the wildly-successful conglomerate – Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK.B) – for 60 years.
His frequent, and treasured, quotes on the importance of buying and holding great companies have been used to espouse the values of long-term investing.
Today, Berkshire owns close to 200 separate businesses but Buffett recently announced at the latest Berkshire Hathaway AGM that he will be stepping away from the firm as CEO at the end of 2025.
Current Berkshire Vice-Chairman Greg Abel will step into the CEO role from next year. At age 94, Buffett still appear as enthusiastic as ever about investing but he declared that the “time has arrived” where Abel should become the CEO.
So, here are three important takeaways we can all learn from Warren Buffett’s last AGM as Berkshire Hathaway CEO.
Read Also: 15 Quotes From Warren Buffett We Can All Learn From
#1 Tariffs Are Act Of War
During his 4.5-hour traditional question-and-answer (Q&A) session, Buffett emphasised his worries about tariffs and their potential impact on the global economy.
He clarified that he believed “trade should not be a weapon” and talked about how trade is not a zero sum game – that indeed if the rest of the world becomes more prosperous then the more prosperous the US will become too.
Buffett spoke about how trade tariffs “can be an act of war” and how the US should look to trade with other countries and to let them do what they do best.
That was likely an implicit reference to how President Trump is seemingly trying to move manufacturing back to the US from manufacturing powerhouses like China.
#2 Think Long Term As Recent Volatility Is Just A Blip
Buffett also addressed the recent volatility in markets, as it relates to the tariff war that President Trump instigated with the rest of the world.
In essence, his approach of ignoring the “noise” and focusing on the long term is still as true as ever. Unsurprisingly, given the amount of market declines he has seen in his 60+ years as an investor, he said that “what has happened in the past 30, 45 days is really nothing”.
He went on to say he wouldn’t describe the market’s recent volatility as “huge” moves and reiterated his value approach to picking up bargains, especially of Berkshire Hathaway, when he stated that if their shares fell 50% then he’d see that as “a fantastic opportunity”.
For investors, it’s clear that Buffett hasn’t changed his approach to market falls. His psychological steeliness means he can view market dislocations as a massive “sale” in stock markets. As he’s previously said many times, investors should be relishing market drops instead of running away from them.
Read Also: The USD Has Crashed Over 8% In 2025. How This Affects Your US Stock Investments
#3 American Exceptionalism Will Continue
Despite all the chaos in the past few months under the new President in the US, Buffett maintained his belief in “American exceptionalism” and the fact that the US economy will continue to lead the way in terms of its leadership on the global stage.
He discussed why he’s still a big believer for American exceptionalism when he said that:
“We’ve gone through great recessions, we’ve gone through world wars, we’ve gone through the development of an atomic bomb that we never dreamt of at the time I was born, so I would not get discouraged about the fact that it doesn’t look like we’ve solved every problem that’s come along.”
Buffett has always maintained his view, in previous Berkshire AGMs, that the US is the world’s best place to invest in. As a staunch believer in the US economy and – by extension – its companies, Buffett’s stance isn’t exactly surprising nor is it untrue.
Over the past century, American equities have outperformed broader global stocks by an annualised 1-2 percentage points – a meaningful margin of outperformance when compounded over decades.
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