Warren Buffett has long told investors not to bet against America, and that message is back in focus as Berkshire Hathaway may enter a new era by the end of 2025. The billionaire investor has said for years that the better move for most people is to buy a low-cost S&P 500 index fund and hold it, not try to pick winners one by one.
Buffett said in his 2022 letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders that he had yet to see a time when it made sense to make a long-term bet against America. Two years earlier, in his 2020 shareholder letter, he wrote that despite some severe interruptions, the country's economic progress has been breathtaking. In 2013, he went further, telling shareholders to put 10% of the cash in short-term government bonds and 90% in a very low-cost S&P 500 index fund, and he said he suggested Vanguard's index fund.
That advice has endured because Buffett has repeated the same basic point across changing markets. His 2013 letter also included his recommendation of Vanguard's S&P 500 index fund, advice he described in the context of what he would leave his wife after his passing. The argument was simple then and remains simple now: for most investors, patience and broad exposure beat constant trading. For a look at the next phase at Berkshire, see Warren Buffett Successor Greg Abel takes over Berkshire's next chapter. And Buffett's long view on money traces back decades, including the tax lesson in Warren Buffett First Tax Return: $7 Bill in 1944 Foreshadowed a Life of Taxes.
It lands differently today because the backdrop is less forgiving. Valuations are high, war in Iran is creating complications for oil prices and inflation, and foreign trade partners are more interested in reducing their reliance on the United States. Even so, the numbers behind Buffett's message remain stubborn. Fidelity notes that since 1980 the S&P 500 has had a 5%+ decline in 93% of calendar years and a 10%+ decline in 48% of calendar years. Volatility is not a warning sign against staying invested; it is the price of admission.
Buffett's broader point has never been that markets are easy. It is that America has kept advancing through shocks that would have shaken weaker systems. If he has stepped down as Berkshire Hathaway's chief executive by the end of 2025, the message he leaves behind is not a trading tip but a discipline: own the country, stay the course, and do not let fear turn a temporary setback into a permanent loss.
