• President Donald Trump's tariffs could have consequences for the current world order, Deutsche Bank said.
• The bank's researchers said US stocks are deeply exposed to a global trade war.
• If Trump doubles down there will be "immense global implications" for years to come, they said.

The stock market, the economy, and the entire world order are at risk if President Donald Trump forges ahead with his tariff plans, Deutsche Bank says.

Trump's announcement last week of at least 10% tariffs on goods from almost all foreign nations — and duties exceeding 50% in some cases — sent shockwaves through global markets.

The president has stood by his plan to improve America's trading terms with its partners despite broad backlash and threats of retaliation from other world leaders. The result has been the fourth-worst two-day decline for stocks since World War II, the bank's researchers said in a note published Monday, when global stocks were deep in the red again.

Jim Reid, Deutsche's global head of macro and thematic research, and his coauthors described Trump's tariff rollout as the "biggest shock to the global trading system" since the 1970s and the "largest tax increase for the US consumer" since the Vietnam War.

They underscored that the existing trade regime has correlated with ballooning US wealth, as companies and their shareholders have benefited from better supply chains, a broader marketplace, and access to cheaper labor in emerging countries. Ending it could raise costs for companies and narrow their profit margins, weighing on their stock prices.

"US equities have arguably been the ultimate beneficiary of this era and as such have a disproportionate amount to lose by its unravelling, especially when starting valuations have been so high," they said.

Deutsche Bank's economists most recently forecast less than 1% growth this year, unemployment approaching 5%, and a spike in core inflation toward 4%.

"Given the market moves and monumental uncertainty in recent days, this could well prove to be too optimistic," the bank's researchers said, adding that Trump's intransigence has paved the way for further market chaos.

They added that if Trump doesn't find an "elegant off-ramp" but instead "doubles down," that would have "immense global implications for 2025 and the years and decades ahead."

That's because if international trade deals fall apart, it will affect America's relationships with respect to "defense, geopolitics and the multi-lateral rules-based world order," they said.

UBS economists also sounded the alarm on Monday. Assuming the tariffs aren't negotiated down, they now expect real US GDP growth of 0.4% this year — down from 1.6% — and 2.2% price growth with core inflation at 4.6% by the end of this year.

They also predicted the Federal Reserve would cut interest rates by 1 percentage point this year to shore up economic growth.

• Childfree people may be saving too much and spending too little, one financial planner says.
• Childfree Wealth's Jay Zigmont said people without kids who don't want to pass on wealth should spend it.
• He recommended they help others early in life, keep a cash cushion, and plan for long-term care.

Many childfree people should be spending more and saving less, one financial guru says.

One reason they may be too frugal is conventional financial plans often assume people have kids or want them, meaning those without children get a lot of "bad advice," Jay Zigmont, the author of "The Childfree Guide to Life and Money," said on a recent episode of Morningstar's "The Long View" podcast.

While parents often set financial goals with the intention of leaving money to the next generation, that often isn't a priority for people without kids, Zigmont said. Focusing on how to maximize their health, their wealth, and their time is often a better option, he said.

The certified financial planner, who holds a PhD in adult learning, said he and his wife plan to give whatever they leave behind to their nephews. "If they get $10,000 or $100,000, that's fine. But if they get $1 million, we made a mistake," he quipped.

Moreover, many of Zigmont's childfree clients don't plan to retire fully but instead plan to "dial back on work rather than a complete cutout."

Zigmont said if they don't want a load of money to their names when they die, and they plan to work until late in life, that changes the calculus for their spending.

He simulated one client's wealth trajectory over their lifespan, and found they were on track to die with $100 million. The client laughed when he said they have a "$100 million problem," Zigmont recalled.

"If your goal is not to leave a whole lot of money to your estate or wherever else it is, you are saving money and investing it in a way it doesn't match your goals," he said.

Minimum spending goals

Another client still buys frozen blueberries because they're a "dollar cheaper" than the fresh ones, and a third with tens of millions of dollars to their name is "still cutting coupons," Zigmont said, underscoring how hard it can be to break a saving habit.

He works with clients to set minimum rather than maximum annual spending goals to help them bend their net-worth curves and avoid accumulating wealth they don't want.

"I had a client the other day, like 'You'd be proud of us. Last year we spent double what we did the year before!' And I'm like, 'Yes, and we're celebrating it,'" Zigmont said.

The personal finance guru also touched on a mid-life crisis that many childfree people have where they've hit many of their life goals in their 30s and 40s and begin wondering what they're going to do with the rest of their lives.

"Those are the tough questions that we as childfree people are answering much earlier that often parents don't answer until the empty nest phase," Zigmont said.

Lend a hand early

He addresses the problem by asking people, "What's the second line of your obituary say?" That helps them to figure out what's meaningful to them, and where they should devote their time and energy.

Zigmont offered a raft of advice for childfree people, such as helping others early in life instead of waiting until you die, maintaining a cash cushion to avoid going broke, and taking out a long-term care policy in the absence of family care. He also recommended writing a will, appointing an executor, and allocating financial and medical power of attorney to ensure one's affairs are handled after death.

Shrewd planning can help those without children make the most of their freedom when young while ensuring they're set for old age and beyond.

• Warren Buffett socked away $321 billion while waiting for the market to crash like it did this week.
• The legendary investor specializes in buying cut-rate stocks during periods of market panic.
• Buffett gurus told BI the billionaire may wait for lower prices or a clearer outlook before buying.

Warren Buffett famously says to "be greedy when others are fearful" and "when it rains gold, put out the bucket, not the thimble." The legendary bargain hunter has been waiting years for the stock market to crash like it did this week — but he might not be buying yet.

President Donald Trump's unveiling of near-universal tariffs and foreign countries' threats of retaliation vaporized upward of $5 trillion — more than double Nvidia's market value — from the S&P 500 over the course of Thursday and Friday.

Some of Buffett's favorite stocks got spanked, with Apple, American Express, Bank of America, and Occidental Petroleum all sinking more than 15% in two days.

Buffett's longtime secretary, Debbie Bosanek, told BI in a statement: "Mr. Buffett is not doing interviews but instead is saving his commentary for the Q&A session on May 3 which is held before the Berkshire Annual Meeting."

The downturn is likely to hearten the Berkshire Hathaway CEO, given he's a value investor who looks to buy businesses at a discount to their worth. He's also known to capitalize on crises, for example when he deployed $26 billion across five deals between 2008 and 2009.

Buffett wrote in his 2017 shareholder letter that sharp sell-offs can create "extraordinary opportunities" for investors who heed the writer Rudyard Kipling's words to "keep your head when all about you are losing theirs."

However, surging valuations have priced him out of buying stocks, acquiring businesses, and even repurchasing his own company's stock in recent years.

Buffett, 94, has also off-loaded a net $158 billion of stocks over the past two calendar years. Berkshire's cash pile has roughly tripled from under $110 billion in September 2022 to $321 billion at the end of 2024 — that's bigger than Coca-Cola's market value.

Armed with an overflowing war chest, Buffett appears well-placed to wade into the market rout and scoop up stocks on the cheap. The internet certainly agrees — social media is rife with comments and memes about Buffett sitting pretty while markets are in chaos.

Wall Street has also rewarded Buffett's cash hoarding: Berkshire's stock price is up about 9% this year, trouncing the S&P's near 14% decline.

As of Thursday's close, the share surge had added $23 billion to Buffett's personal fortune and vaulted him past the likes of LVMH's Bernard Arnault and Oracle's Larry Ellison into fourth place on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

Yet the famously patient and disciplined investor might wait longer before embarking on a shopping spree.

"When prices fall, it certainly encourages Buffett to buy unless he views new permanent damage greater than the price discount," Steven Check told Business Insider. Check oversees $2 billion in assets as the CEO of Check Capital Management and has attended every in-person Berkshire annual meeting since 1996.

Stocks may be cheaper than before, but Check said Buffett will likely "require a much larger drop to do significant buying."

Waiting game

Buffett's followers will likely have to wait until Berkshire's meeting in May or its second-quarter portfolio update in August to learn whether the investor topped up his holdings this week.

Steve Hanke, a professor of applied economics at Johns Hopkins University who's been teaching Buffett-style valuation to students for decades, told BI he's "watching his next move with the most careful and anxious attention" as it will "tell us a great deal about where he thinks the economy is going."

"If he plunges into the market and starts buying, it will signal that he believes the Trump tariffs were nothing more than a minor economic annoyance that created wonderful buying opportunities," said Hanke, who is a former economic advisor to President Ronald Reagan and was the president of Toronto Trust Argentina when it was the world's best-performing mutual fund in 1995.

If Buffett holds off, Hanke said it would suggest he's keeping in mind the Smoot-Hawley tariffs of March 1930, which "broke the back of the stock market and helped to plunge the world into the Great Depression."

Hanke's "tentative guess" is that Buffett's knowledge of economic history will lead him to "remain on the sidelines, at least for a while" until the scope of the economic situation becomes clearer.

If the frantic sell-off in markets continues, Buffett's moment might come sooner rather than later.

• Baby boomers will soon open their IRA statements and may damage their retirement funds.
• President Donald Trump's tariffs threaten further pain, finance professor Peter Ricchiuti told BI.
• He said tariffs are "prosperity killers" that drag down stocks and the economy.

Many people could be left disappointed when they open their IRA statements in the coming days — and President Donald Trump's "Liberation Day" tariffs threaten to make things even worse.

The S&P 500 fell 5% in the first three months of 2025, marking its worst quarter since 2022, while the Nasdaq Composite slumped 10% as stocks like Tesla plunged 36%.

Those declines have taken a bite out of many people's investments in the stock market, and could disrupt their retirement plans if they continue.

"For the small investor, the decline in value will be devastating, particularly for retired baby boomers" who draw their incomes from their retirement accounts, Peter Ricchiuti, a senior professor of finance at Tulane University's Freeman School of Business, told Business Insider.

The sell-off is partly in reaction to Trump's topsy-turvy tariffs in recent weeks, which have made it "impossible" for business owners to make decisions, Ricchiuti said.

The former investment manager, who once oversaw Louisiana's $3 billion portfolio as the assistant state treasurer, said that running a company has become a "game of Whack-A-Mole" because everyone is trying to guess which industry will be hit next.

Tariffs have landed

Trump unveiled tariffs of at least 10% on imports from all foreign countries on Wednesday, with higher rates for countries with a large trade deficit with the US. Goods from China, the number-two exporter to the US after Mexico, will be subject to a 54% tariff from April 9 if nothing changes.

The news sent S&P futures down more than 3% in premarket trading on Thursday, as key constituents Tesla and Nvidia tumbled 8% and 6% respectively.

Tariffs push up costs for companies and prices for consumers, while uncertainty discourages hiring, expansion, and spending. Those forces slow corporate earnings growth, eroding valuations and sending stocks lower, Ricchiuti said.

Strategists at Goldman Sachs cut their S&P 500 forecast last week, citing the incoming tariffs as their main rationale. They predicted the index would decline a further 5% this quarter and gain 6% over the next 12 months, down from 0% and 16%, respectively.

One pressing concern is that Trump ratcheting up import taxes will cause countries around the world to retaliate by imposing reciprocal tariffs on imports from the US. Ricchiuti said that's one reason why tariffs never succeed in leveling terms of trade and instead act as "prosperity killers."

During Trump's first term, he imposed sweeping tariffs on goods ranging from steel and aluminum to solar panels and washing machines, and broad-based duties on imports from China. The tariffs led to material price increases and reductions in Americans' real income, studies have found.

Anxiety abounds

Another worry for investors and everyday Americans alike is that if tariffs lead consumers to cut back on spending and companies to retrench, overall economic growth could suffer. Ricchiuti flagged there is mounting concern on Wall Street that Trump's trade battles will "cause a recession or even the much-feared stagflation."

BlackRock CEO Larry Fink described the national mood in his yearly letter on Monday.

"I hear it from nearly every client, nearly every leader — nearly every person — I talk to: They're more anxious about the economy than any time in recent memory," he wrote.

Another wave of tariff chaos is now threatening to hit stocks that have already retreated. The timing is terrible for boomers living off their nest eggs, who could see their retirement funds dwindle if they're pulling money out at the same time their stock holdings are falling in value.

Ricchiuti bemoaned that the economy was on a good path with falling inflation and record corporate earnings and stock prices ahead of Trump's inauguration.

"The worst part of all this is that these economic wounds are self-inflicted," he said.

• The $100 billion club got smaller after a tough three months on the markets.
• Michael Dell's net worth fell by $24.5 billion this year, while Jensen Huang is down $19.2 billion.
• While some of the superrich lost billions, Warren Buffett's net worth soared by $24.3 billion.

Nvidia's Jensen Huang and Michael Dell have fallen out of the exclusive $100 billion club after a terrible three months for the stock market.

At the start of the year, there were 16 centi-billionaires but there are now only 13, as a sharp sell-off in equities wiped billions from their fortunes in the worst quarter for the market since 2022.

The other casualty is Amancio Ortega, the founder of Zara owner Inditex.

President Donald Trump's aggressive tariff policies have led to a more volatile market and dampened investor confidence.

Jensen Huang

Once one of the biggest beneficiaries of the AI stock boom, Huang is down $19.2 billion this year as Nvidia shares have fallen 18% since January. His net worth now stands at $95.2 billion, per the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, putting him in 16th place.

A mix of AI market saturation fears, tighter regulations, and a disappointing IPO from AI cloud startup CoreWeave have weighed on investor sentiment, dragging Nvidia's market value down.

Huang remains richer than he was two years ago when his net worth was about $25 billion — although he's still well off his $130 billion peak from last November.

Michael Dell

Dell, the tech entrepreneur who has turned the company he founded, wasn't spared either.

The Bloomberg rich list shows he's lost a big slice of his fortune in the first quarter of this year with a $24.5 billion decline. He's just below $100 billion mark and in 14th place.

Despite reporting strong earnings in February, Dell Technologies' stock has lost almost 22% this year amid concern slower-than-expected AI infrastructure spending.

Amancio Ortega

The 89-year-old Spanish founder of Zara is down $2.5 billion following a slide in Inditex shares of about 7% this year.

That fall leaves him worth $98.8 billion and in 15th place on Bloomberg's list.

A mix of weaker consumer spending and unfavorable foreign exchange conditions has taken its toll on the fast-fashion empire.

Not quite so rich

Other members of the $100 billion club have taken heavy hits, with Elon Musk down $116 billion to $316 billion, Larry Ellison down $30.3 billion to $162 billion and Jeff Bezos down $27.1 billion to $212 billion.

The only centi-billionaires to grow their wealth were Warren Buffett and Bill Gates.

Buffett added $24.3 billion to his fortune this year following a surge in Berkshire Hathaway stock, putting him fifth on Bloomberg's list at $166 billion.

That's two spots and $5 billion ahead of his friend and Microsoft cofounder, whose net worth is $2 billion higher this year. The bulk of Gates' wealth comes from his cash holdings of $78 billion, with his Microsoft stake valued at $24.3 billion.

• Charlie Munger called Alibaba one of his worst investments before he died in November 2023.
• Warren Buffett's late business partner may have been too harsh, as the stock has soared 74% since then.
• As Daily Journal's chairman, he built a $72 million stake that made up nearly 30% of its portfolio.

Charlie Munger labeled his Alibaba wager one of the worst mistakes of his career shortly before he died. The legendary investor may have been too hasty in writing off his last big bet.

A broader Chinese tech rally has boosted Alibaba stock by 56% this year, and 74% since Munger's death in November 2023. The e-commerce giant's shares have rallied to their highest levels since November 2021, although they still trade at less than half their October 2020 peak.

Munger, Warren Buffett's right-hand man and Berkshire Hathaway's vice-chairman for more than 40 years, invested both his family's money and some of Daily Journal's spare cash in Alibaba.

Daily Journal is a newspaper publisher and legal software supplier that Munger chaired from 1977 to 2022. Starting in 2009, he grew its stock portfolio from scratch to be worth more than $300 million.

Munger bought 165,000 American depositary shares (ADS) of Alibaba for the company in the first quarter of 2021, marking the first new addition to its US stock portfolio since at least the end of 2013.

Even as Alibaba's stock price nearly halved that year, the billionaire raised the stake to about 602,000 shares worth $72 million at the end of 2021, accounting for 28% of the US stock portfolio's total value.

Munger shifted gears the following quarter, paring Daily Journal's holding to 300,000 shares. That position remained intact until after the investor died, just a few weeks shy of his 100th birthday.

In the first quarter of 2024, Daily Journal cut the stake to 195,000 shares worth $16.5 million at the end of March that year, and it was still that size at the end of December, Securities and Exchange Commission filings show.

Owning up to mistakes

In the same quarter that Munger began buying Alibaba, he scolded cofounder Jack Ma for publicly criticizing the Chinese government, calling him "very arrogant."

Following Ma's comments, authorities nixed a planned initial public offering for Alibaba's mobile payments affiliate, Ant Group. They also demanded Ant restructure its business and hit Alibaba with billions of dollars in antitrust penalties. Meanwhile, Jack Ma disappeared from public view.

Munger intentionally rubbed his nose in his missteps to avoid making similar ones in the future. So it's unsurprising that he openly described Alibaba as a terrible error.

"I regard Alibaba as one of the worst mistakes I ever made," Munger said at Daily Journal's annual meeting in February 2023.

"I got charmed by the idea of their position in the Chinese internet. I didn't stop to realize they're still a goddamn retailer," he continued. "It's going to be a competitive business, the internet — it's not going to be a cakewalk for everybody."

In his final TV interview in late 2023, Munger said: "My worst trade was buying a block for the Munger family in Alibaba, which is a pretty good company. But I think it got overhyped, and Jack Ma made mistakes in dealing with the Chinese government. Everybody has some bad ones. The greatest tennis player goes out there some days to the center court and has a bad day. It happens."

Winners and losers

Alibaba has proven to be less disastrous than Munger feared, and may even turn out to be a winner. Even if it doesn't, he has other stellar bets to hang his hat on.

For example, he pitched BYD to Buffett, resulting in Berkshire paying $232 million for 225 million shares of the Chinese EV maker in 2008. BYD's stock price has surged from the Hong Kong dollar equivalent of $1 then to record highs of above $50 in recent days.

Berkshire cut its stake from about 20% in 2022 to under 5% by mid-2024, and may have exited the bet completely. If untouched, those 225 million shares would be worth more than $11 billion.

Even though it cashed out, Berkshire likely made well over 20 times its money based on BYD's trading range during its selling timeframe.

Munger may have died believing that investing in Alibaba was a bad decision when it wasn't. Even if he was wrong to buy in, he's knocked it out of the park with bets like BYD.

• Elon Musk's central role in the Trump administration has sparked a fierce backlash against Tesla.
• Warren Buffett stays out of politics as he knows his employees and shareholders could pay the price.
• Musk had good reasons to get political but he's damaging his companies, commentators tell BI.

Elon Musk's foray into politics has put a target on Tesla, showing Warren Buffett was right to worry that speaking out could hurt his employees and shareholders.

Musk threw his money and clout behind President Donald Trump's reelection campaign last year, stumping for the Republican candidate at rallies, whipping up support for him on X, and pouring more than $290 million into returning him to power.

The world's richest man is now a prominent advisor to the US leader and the driving force behind DOGE's ostensible mission to reduce government fraud, waste, and abuse.

Musk's central role in the Trump administration has rankled some Americans, sparking boycotts and sales of Tesla vehicles, protests outside showrooms — and even vandalism and destruction of the company's products and property.

The Tesla and SpaceX CEO has said he's shocked by the violence, calling it "insane and deeply wrong" in an X post earlier this month. "Tesla just makes electric cars and has done nothing to deserve these evil attacks."

In another post, Musk wrote: "Has there ever been such a level of coordinated violence against a peaceful company? I understand not wanting to buy a product, but this is extreme arson and destruction!"

Staying out of trouble

Buffett, the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, openly supported Democrats until a few years ago. He hosted fundraisers for Barack Obama in 2011, and took the stage at a Hillary Clinton rally in 2016 to call out Trump's multiple failed businesses, refusal to release his tax returns, and cruel treatment of others. He did not endorse Kamala Harris or any other politicians last year.

The billionaire investor explained why at Berkshire's annual shareholders' meeting in 2022. His previous stance was that he doesn't put his "citizenship in a blind trust as a CEO," but recognized that voicing his political views could anger people and prompt them to "take it out on our companies."

"I've decidedly backed off. I don't want to say anything that'll get attributed, basically to Berkshire, and have somebody else bear the consequences of what I talk about," Buffett said, underscoring that he doesn't want his workers and stockholders to "pay the price" for his political commentary.

However, Musk and Buffett have starkly different goals that shape their political strategies, Sean Lux, an associate professor of practice at Texas Tech University's Rawls College of Business, told Business Insider.

The Berkshire chief is focused on delivering consistent, long-term returns regardless of which party is in charge, so avoiding politics or playing nice with both sides makes sense for him, Lux said.

As for Musk, his ultimate mission is to reach Mars and the US government could be a "tremendous catalyst or impediment" to those efforts, Lux said.

"Donald Trump's candidacy provided Elon a once-in-history opportunity to broadly influence US policy in support of his goals," Lux said. "Elon is probably the greatest business strategist of his generation, and he was unlikely to miss this opportunity regardless of public backlash."

The business guru pointed to the Federal Communications Commission's recent decision to allow SpaceX's Starlink unit to offer direct-to-cell satellite service.

Lux said that "alone was worth the cost of Elon's support to Trump's campaign." It's a major step toward Musk disrupting not just telecom giants but players such as Apple, Meta, and Alphabet.

Speaking out can be costly

Steven Callander, a professor of political economy at Stanford Graduate School of Business, told BI the backlash against Musk for his politics actions was "inevitable." He said the "real cost to Tesla will be the lost sales and the brand damage" — not the vandalism.

New Tesla registrations in the US tumbled 11% in January — even as Ford's EV sales soared 54% — and picture was worse in Europe as sales plunged more than 40% in February, industry reports show. Tesla shares are down 45% from their December high.

Callander said the public is fine with CEOs taking political stances as that's "part of being authentic," but the risk is they become so enmeshed in politics that it "overwhelms their business identity."

"This is Musk's fate," he said, adding that the benefits to Musk's companies from government contracts "will be swamped by the damage he is doing with the millions of customers in the general public."

Callander added that business leaders don't only have to gauge the risk of public backlash, but now the possibility of government retaliation too. That's a "real concern for many CEOs," he said. "They'd rather stay in the pack and not be the one targeted by Trump."

• Anthony Mackie said actors need to behave like investors and diversify their portfolios.
• The "Captain America" star warned it's risky to rely solely on acting income as it could dry up.
• Mackie said he keeps his four sons "humble" and they've "never had a pair of Jordans."

Actors should think like investors and make sure to spread their bets, Anthony Mackie says.

The "Captain America: Brave New World" star recently told "The Pivot" podcast he's seen many of his peers get "hot" and land a bunch of leading roles, only for their careers to flatline a few years later.

"It's like, yo, you have no staying power," Mackie said, "because you're not diversifying your portfolio. If all you're investing in is Walmart, and Walmart has a bad week, you're fucked. So you've got to be able to do all the other shit, and that's what I always tell young actors."

Investors typically buy multiple assets to avoid betting the farm on a single horse. They might offset the risk of holding stocks by owning bonds too, and within a stock portfolio, they might balance the higher volatility of a growth stock like Tesla with the stability of a more staid name like Walmart.

Mackie repeated his point when asked how to achieve longevity in an entertainment career. "By diversifying your portfolio," he said, adding that now he's in his mid-40s, he's eager to do more producing and curate his own experiences for moviegoers.

"Tyler Perry has shown us the mold," Mackie said, adding that the billionaire filmmaker behind the "Madea" franchise has "created the wheel, so it don't make sense for me to get a chisel and try to make another one."

Perry's income streams include his Tyler Perry Studios in Atlanta, along with other investments.

Mackie — known for portraying the superhero Falcon in past Marvel movies and his roles in "The Hurt Locker" and "8 Mile" — said athletes have been parlaying their fame into owning car dealerships, barbecue joints, and other businesses for decades.

George Foreman, who died earlier this month, made way more money from his grills than from his boxing career.

Mackie also echoed Warren Buffett's famous advice to find a job you're passionate about. The legendary investor has often said he enjoys being Berkshire Hathaway's CEO so much that he tap dances to work.

Similarly, Mackie said that "if you love it, you never work a day in your life."

The actor also spoke about ensuring his four sons remain grounded despite his success. "I keep my boys humble," he said, adding they've "never had a pair of Jordans."

Mackie said they "don't do all that internet fly shit," and the message he sends them is: "I could be the biggest star in the world, do not let me catch you being stupid."

Ben Affleck, another actor who's played multiple superheroes, recently said that he frequently gives his teenage son a reality check.

"There's always some grift why I need to be buying," the "Daredevil" and "Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice" star said about his son's taste for luxury goods. "I'm like, bruh, you do not need $1,000 shoes. He's like, 'We have the money.' I'm like, 'I have the money — you're broke.'"

• Berkshire Hathaway stock has jumped 16% this year while the S&P 500 has dropped 2%.
• Investors are flocking to Warren Buffett's company because of its huge cash reserves and reputation.
• Buffett is known for capitalizing on market chaos and has assuaged succession concerns.

Warren Buffett is off to a roaring start to 2025 with shares of his Berkshire Hathaway conglomerate up 16%, trouncing the benchmark S&P 500's 2% decline.

The stock surge has boosted Buffett's net worth by an unmatched $23 billion, vaulting him past Bill Gates into sixth place on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, with a $165 billion fortune.

The 94-year-old business icon and his company are riding high as investors seek shelter from roiling markets, trusting the legendary bargain hunter to pounce if asset prices crash and the economy tanks.

They're also cheering a rebound at Geico, which is owned by Berkshire, and banking on Buffett's planned successor to deliver when the time comes.

Port in a storm

"Berkshire is a stable, solid ship in a sea of uncertainty right now," Paul Lountzis, the president and founder of Lountzis Asset Management, told Business Insider.

The longtime Berkshire shareholder pointed to the company's "rock of Gibraltar" balance sheet, which boasted more than $320 billion in cash, Treasurys, and other liquid assets at the end of December, and stocks worth more than $270 billion.

During his 60 years in charge, Buffett has transformed Berkshire from a failing textile mill into a $1 trillion juggernaut. He's acquired scores of businesses across myriad industries, including See's Candies, Precision Castparts, and the BNSF Railway, and built multibillion-dollar stakes in blue-chip stocks such as Apple, Coca-Cola, and American Express.

Berkshire stock has soared in value by more than 5,500,000% during Buffett's tenure, crushing the S&P's roughly 39,000% gain over the same period. The stock has compounded at about 20% a year for six decades — almost twice as fast as the benchmark.

The billionaire philanthropist is also known for prudently managing Berkshire, prizing long-term success over short-term gains.

"In an uncertain world, investors place a higher value on the certainty that Berkshire offers," Darren Pollock, a portfolio manager at Cheviot Value Management and another longtime shareholder, told BI. "Consistency and reliability often get a bid when froth exits financial markets."

Cathy Seifert, a senior vice president at CFRA Research and a longtime Berkshire analyst, said there's been a "flight to quality amid an upswing in market and geopolitical volatility," and investors see Buffett's sprawling empire as a safe haven.

Profiting from chaos

Buffett is a value investor who specializes in spotting and scooping up stocks and businesses at a discount. The best time to do that is when prices tumble and the pool of buyers dries up.

"Warren Buffett has often demonstrated he is at his best with capital allocation with more challenging conditions," Macrae Sykes, a portfolio manager at Gabelli Funds, told BI. He's "shown a unique ability to see through the noise and find value."

For example, the legendary investor struck lucrative deals with Goldman Sachs, General Electric, Mars, Dow Chemical, and Swiss Re during the financial crisis.

He deployed more than $21 billion across those five transactions between 2008 and 2009, securing positions worth a combined $26 billion — and yielding $2.1 billion in yearly interest and dividends — by the end of 2009.

Fast-forward to today, and Berkshire's huge "cash cushion" gives it "tremendous firepower for bargain hunting should opportunities arise," Pollock said.

Buffett's patience, discipline, and refusal to buy into bubbles and trendy stocks have paid off in the past. When the dot-com bubble burst and the S&P fell by an average of 14% a year between 2000 and 2002, Berkshire shares rose by 10% on average during those three years as investors dumped expensive tech stocks and returned to tried-and-true names.

Under Buffett's leadership, Berkshire stock "substantially outperformed" the market in 10 of the 12 years the S&P declined, David Kass, a finance professor at the University of Maryland who's followed Buffett for four decades, told BI.

Lifting the hood

Berkshire's business performance has also made it a draw for investors. The company has some "fundamental momentum," Sykes said, noting it generated about $30 billion in operating cash flow last year, or about $600 million a week.

Geico's profits soared last year as Todd Combs, the car insurer's CEO and one of Buffett's two investment managers, boosted efficiency and updated its underwriting practices.

Buffett described Geico as a "long-held gem that needed major repolishing" in his latest annual letter and hailed its recent performance as "spectacular."

The recovery helped lift Berkshire's operating earnings by 71% year-over-year last quarter. Kass said that was a key reason its shares have outpaced Magnificent Seven stocks such as Microsoft and Alphabet this year.

Seifert said the Geico turnaround should "significantly aid" Berkshire's profit growth given it's one of the company's most important business units. She also noted the Federal Reserve's hikes to interest rates since 2022 have made Berkshire's mountain of bonds more lucrative.

Buffett's company raked in nearly $22 billion in interest, dividend, and investment income last year, up from less than $16 billion in 2023 and about $10 billion in 2022.

Berkshire after Buffett

Buffett and Berkshire have become virtually synonymous, making it hard to imagine another CEO filling his shoes. Yet the demise of his longtime business partner, Charlie Munger, a few weeks shy of his 100th birthday in late 2023, underscored the Buffett era is nearing an end.

Buffett has carefully planned for his departure and worked to build shareholders' comfort with Greg Abel, the head of Berkshire's non-insurance businesses and his chosen successor.

A final reason for Berkshire's stock gains this year is "growing confidence" in Abel's ability to make Berkshire's subsidiaries sing and shrewdly allocate the company's capital, Sykes said.

Buffett has "done a great job preparing the firm for a future without him," Lountzis said. "There is not much more he could do — though I do wish he could clone himself and Charlie to keep running it for another 60 years."

• Warren Buffett's March Madness bracket challenge finally has a winner of its $1 million prize.
• A Berkshire Hathaway employee called 31 out of 32 first-round games, including the first 29.
• Eleven runners-up would receive $100,000 each, Berkshire said.

Warren Buffett has been running a March Madness bracket challenge for Berkshire Hathaway employees for nearly a decade, but nobody had ever won his $1 million prize — until now.

The famed investor's company said in a press release Monday that an employee of its FlightSafety International subsidiary won its 2025 bracket contest after correctly picking the winners of 31 of the 32 first-round games in the men's NCAA Tournament, played last week.

Twelve workers across Buffett's business empire accurately predicted that many games, but the winner called the first 29 games correctly before dropping the ball on game 30, in which Illinois beat Xavier, 86-73.

Berkshire said the 11 runners-up would receive $100,000 each. The conglomerate added that its big winner called 13 games in a row in the tournament's second round, for a total of 44 out of 45 games in the first and second rounds. The chances of doing that are roughly one in 780 billion if every game is treated as a coin flip.

"I feel good that we sort of hit the sweet spot on this one," Buffett told The Wall Street Journal, nodding to his decision to make the competition easier by no longer requiring a perfect first-round bracket.

"I'm getting older," the 94-year-old told the newspaper in an earlier interview. "I want to give away a million dollars to somebody while I'm still around as chairman."

The billionaire said a reward of that size would spark excitement "all over the place."

Berkshire originally insured a $1 billion public challenge in 2014 to correctly predict all 63 tournament games (not counting the First Four play-in round). It launched its own internal contest in 2016, offering up to $1 million a year for life to any Berkshire employee who could pick a perfect bracket for the 48 games prior to the Sweet 16. It has run the contest almost every year since without a grand prize winner.

The exact rules of this year's internal contest were unclear, though the Journal reported before the tournament that the winner would need to correctly guess at least 30 of the first-round games, which began Thursday. Berkshire and FlightSafety didn't immediately respond to requests for comment.

Buffett told the Journal he didn't know the name of this year's winner and had been told the person didn't want to be publicly identified.

FlightSafety, which provides professional aviation training services and flight simulation products, employed fewer than 5,000 of Berkshire's 392,000 employees at the end of December, per the company's latest annual report.

• Warning signs for the economy are flashing in 44 US states, Rosenberg Research said.
• Rising unemployment signals "recession pressures are broadening out," founder David Rosenberg said.
• Trump's tariffs and Musk's government job cuts could weigh on stocks and real estate, he said.

Recession signs are flashing in all but six states as the Trump administration's policies threaten to throttle growth, a recent analysis found.

The unemployment rate in 44 states has jumped by at least 0.5 percentage points between this economic cycle's low and January, Rosenberg Research said in a recent note.

The only six states not to see an increase of that magnitude are Connecticut, Delaware, Montana, North Carolina, Oklahoma, and South Dakota, according to a table provided to Business Insider by the firm.

"The breadth of the increase we have seen in the unemployment rate means recession pressures are broadening out regionally," founder and president David Rosenberg told BI, adding that "88% of the country has a labor market blanketed" in recession.

The metric used by Rosenberg's firm is an iteration of the "Sahm rule," which says that when the three-month moving average of the unemployment rate rises by 0.5 percentage points or more from its lowest point in the previous 12 months, a recession reliably follows.

Rosenberg, who called the Great Recession when he was the chief North American economist at Merrill Lynch, warned that a combination of tariff-fueled price increases and an easing labor market could put a "serious squeeze" on incomes and reduce consumer spending.

He also underscored that Trump's efforts to curtail public outlays and shrink the federal government are a "huge shift" from the massive stimulus of recent years.

Negative implications

"Elon Musk is turning that prior stimulus into restraint long before any tax cuts get passed into law," Rosenberg told BI, referring to the Tesla and SpaceX CEO's efforts to ostensibly cut government fraud and waste with his DOGE agency.

"The implications for asset prices, both equities and residential real estate, are decisively negative."

David Wigglesworth, an economist and data scientist at Piper Sandler, told BI the number of states triggering the traditional Sahm rule dropped from 24 in July to 18 in January, but that tally was still elevated compared with historical norms.

"With short-term labor risks building — from the roll-off of federal Covid grants to states, to DOGE firings, tariffs, elevated general uncertainty, etc. — we may not see it improve much further," he said.

Wigglesworth hailed Rosenberg's measure as "handy" but emphasized it's "much more forward-looking than the Sahm rule, which relies on three-month averages and a trailing 12-month window." Those constraints might help the more conventional measure to avoid noise in the data caused by monthly swings, as well as older cycle lows.

National unemployment has hovered between 3.4% and 4.2% since January 2022, but inched up to 4.1% last month. State-level unemployment data for February is due on Friday.

A BI analysis of official jobs data found that unemployment rose in all but seven states in the year to January, and was flat in a further two. A full 28 states saw joblessness rise by at least 0.5 percentage points from historical lows set since the start of 2022, the analysis found.

For example, Rhode Island's unemployment rate rose from 2.6% in June 2023 to 4.6% in January this year. Similarly, California's rate jumped from 3.8% in August 2022 to 5.4% in January.

It's worth noting that state-level unemployment spiked last year yet a national downturn didn't follow. Rosenberg has also been predicting a recession for several years and has yet to be proven right.

• Pop star will.i.am said he invested in Tesla before Elon Musk was appointed CEO in 2008.
• The FYI founder and CEO said he regrets turning down the chance to be an early backer of Airbnb.
• The musician has credited Musk and Apple cofounder Steve Jobs as two big reasons his "life is nice."

Music legend will.i.am says he bet on Tesla before Elon Musk took the wheel — but turned down the chance to be one of Airbnb's early backers.

"I invested in Tesla in 2006, before Elon took over the company, and he's done great, taking it to where it is," he recently told Fortune. "Hopefully, he can figure out a way to get it back to its glory."

The founder and CEO of FYI, whose real name is William Adams, stands to have made a fortune if he kept his stock. Tesla went public in June 2010 at $17 a share, or $1.13 adjusted for stock splits in 2020 and 2022.

The electric vehicle company's stock hit a record high of about $480 in December, representing a more than 420-fold increase from the IPO price.

Tesla shares closed at just under $249 on Friday, meaning an investor who bought in at the IPO price and held until now has made more than 200 times their money. Earlier buyers would have paid less for their shares, paving the way for an even greater return if they retained their stake.

The singer was asked on the "Drinks Champs" podcast last year to pick his favorite between Musk and Steve Jobs, the Apple cofounder.

"Damn, both of those cats is why my life is nice," will.i.am replied, noting he was part of the team that sold Beats by Dre to Apple for $3 billion in 2014. "You're talking about two companies that … changed my life — so I say both."

The rapper and producer recently told Channel 4 that Tesla has "had its valleys and its highs" and applauded Musk for having "saved it out of bankruptcy in the past."

He also hailed Musk as a dreamer and one of the "heroes of this era" while sitting next to the Tesla and SpaceX chief during a 2012 discussion hosted by Singularity University's executive program.

Another entertainment legend, Morgan Freeman, has also said he owns Tesla stock and has spoken highly of Musk. "He's, you know, what he's done, nobody else has ever done," the movie star said in 2016. "He's landed a rocket ship so it's reusable — you know what a feat that is?"

A representative for will.i.am declined to confirm whether he still owned Tesla shares, telling Business Insider he "doesn't publicly discuss his holdings at this level of detail."

The one that got away

The music superstar — who shot to fame with the Black Eyed Peas and later became a judge on "The Voice UK" — told Fortune his previous bets include Pinterest, Dropbox, OpenAI, and Anthropic, along with another company that Musk now owns.

"I invested in Twitter early on. When Jack [Dorsey] left, I sold it. Made good there," will.i.am said.

The "I Gotta Feeling" and "Boom Boom Pow" singer also said Airbnb cofounder and CEO Brian Chesky invited him to invest up to $200,000 in an early fundraising round.

After will.i.am learned the home-sharing platform offered neither a concierge nor room service to guests, he rejected the invitation. He explained that frequently traveling and staying in hotels meant he'd been "pampered by the best," leading him to judge Airbnb by luxury hospitality standards.

Passing was the "wrong decision" and a "bad one," he said at a recent SXSW event, per an Instagram video. Airbnb went public in December 2020 and is now valued at about $80 billion, meaning even a 0.1% stake would be worth roughly $80 million.

"Ballin', I would have been," will.i.am quipped. "Now, I'm like bawlin'."

• Baby boomers' hopes of retiring comfortably could be at risk if stocks keep falling.
• Older Americans could be forced to delay retirement, resume working, or cut back on spending.
• Retirement gurus shared a range of strategies to preserve their nest eggs.

Baby boomers' dreams of a comfy retirement are in jeopardy as a flagging stock market threatens to spoil their plans.

The benchmark S&P 500 index dropped 10% between February 19 and March 13 — a seven-month low — fueled by fears that the Trump administration's policies could tip the economy into recession. It's still in the red for 2025.

The sell-off has pinched older Americans' portfolios, shrinking their nest eggs and stoking worries about affording the retirement they imagined.

Most boomers are in their 60s and 70s, getting ready to exit the workforce or already in early retirement. They own stocks worth nearly $20 trillion — almost half the US market — between their direct holdings and 401(k)s, David Rosenberg, the president of Rosenberg Research and former chief North American economist at Merrill Lynch, told Business Insider.

They've "ridden the wave with nary a move to take profits, diversify, or rebalance," leaving them heavily exposed to market downturns and with limited time to recover losses, he said.

If their portfolios keep declining while they're withdrawing money to cover living expenses, they won't recover fully even if the market rebounds — a danger known as "sequence of return risk."

Rosenberg warned that if the pullback continues, "many will be forced to re-enter the labor market— packing bags at their local Walmart."

Those who refuse to sell stocks could find themselves "cutting back their retirement lifestyle spending like it's nobody's business — wave bye-bye to cruise lines, tablets/e-readers, and cosmetic surgeries," he wrote in a research note this week.

Sweeping fallout

"If these portfolio losses continue, we could be looking at a retirement crisis," Tim Schmidt, the founder and CEO of Gold IRA Custodians, told BI.

Millions might have to delay retirement by three to five years, creating a "workforce bottleneck" that blocks younger employees from advancing, he said. "For individuals, the consequences could be devastating — depleted savings, increased debt, and psychological distress."

Selling at lows might lock in permanent losses, Schmidt continued. Reduced spending could create a "negative feedback loop" that results in slimmer corporate profits, job losses, further asset price declines, pressure on housing markets as retirees abandon downsizing plans, and younger generations having to support parents whose "retirement funds have evaporated," he added.

Dan Doonan, the executive director of the National Institute on Retirement Security, said widespread delays in retirement could make it harder for businesses to control costs. If a recession hits, people might respond by saving less for retirement, further reducing their chances of comfort in old age.

The whole economy could suffer if retirees cut back when consumer spending is already under pressure. Markets could also be hit if more people are selling stocks to cover living costs, Mark Hamrick, Bankrate's senior economic advisor and Washington bureau chief, told BI.

Prepare for trouble

Current and future retirees might be tempted to cash out, fearing further declines for stocks. However, "making impulsive decisions, like pulling out of investments in a panic, can disrupt years of careful planning," Judith Ward, a thought leadership director at T. Rowe Price and a certified financial planner, told BI.

The "urge to react is high" in uncertain times, but overhauling investments or fleeing markets can backfire, Rita Assaf, a vice president of Fidelity Investments' retirement division, told BI. Investing too conservatively can result in less retirement income and a tougher time keeping pace with inflation, she said.

Doonan noted that markets typically recover within a few years, so "fear selling after prices collapse and buying back in after it 'feels safe' can leave you selling low and buying high."

However, Rosenberg urged boomers to "get their heads out of the sand" and recognize that bull markets don't last forever. He said the "best way to cushion the blow right now is to finally start the process of de-risking their portfolios and shift into cash, bonds and gold."

Assaf recommended a "diversified income plan" where a retiree covers essential costs such as food and housing with guaranteed income sources that keep up with inflation, such as Social Security and annuities. Then savings can be spent on non-essentials such as travel and hobbies, which are easier to cut back if required.

Bonds buffer

She recommended withdrawing no more than 4% to 5% of one's assets a year, and planning to cover healthcare expenses that typically exceed $165,000 from age 65 onward.

Ward advised maintaining a long-term view, rebalancing portfolios ahead of retirement to include more bonds as a "buffer" against volatility, automating contributions, and looking to cut expenses or delay large purchases in a down market.

She recommended having a separate cash account to avoid selling assets when prices are low, and considering working more years or having part-time jobs or side hustles in retirement to increase savings and delay withdrawals.

Sabino Vargas, a senior financial adviser at Vanguard, told BI that older investors can set themselves up for a successful retirement by ramping up contributions to their employer-sponsored plans, building a health savings account, and tapping their home equity if they move to a cheaper housing market.

Hamrick said investors should regularly review their risk appetite, asset allocation, and investment time horizon to make sure they're on track. He also advised paying down debts and boosting emergency savings to weather hard times.

Boomers rode the bull market to riches, but stocks don't care about their retirement plans. Unless they protect their nest eggs, they risk spending their golden years bagging groceries instead of lounging on the beach.

• Investors are looking for discounted Russian assets that could jump in value on a Ukraine peace deal.
• President Donald Trump has fueled hopes the war might end soon and Russia could rejoin global markets.
• Risks include a resumption of the conflict and a reimposition of sanctions.

Investors are quietly searching for beaten-down Russian assets that could surge in value if a peace deal is struck and capital floods back into the country. It won't be easy money.

Traders have been snapping up shares of foreign-listed Russian companies and bought Kazakhstan's tenge currency as a ruble proxy, Bloomberg reported. Wall Street banks have been hunting Russian corporate bonds to satisfy demand from Middle Eastern family offices, and pitching their clients on ruble-linked derivative contracts called "non-deliverable forwards" that bypass sanctions, per the outlet.

"There's an aggressive search for securities of Russian issuers around the world," Moscow-based investment banker Evgeny Kogan told Bloomberg. "Investors in general are asking how quickly they can enter the Russian market."

Russia's invasion of Ukraine in early 2022 sent investors scattering and spurred Western countries to impose sanctions that have choked Russia's banking sector and wider economy.

US President Donald Trump is working to broker an end to the war and spoke to Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday, but the pair couldn't reach terms on a cease-fire meaning further negotiations lie ahead.

Rising ruble

Eswar Prasad, a senior professor of trade policy at Cornell University and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, told Business Insider: "The prospect of a peace deal and the lifting of sanctions on Russia is likely to result in a wave of financial capital flowing into the country in the hopes of profiting from rebounds of its economy, financial markets, and currency."

Trump's confidence that a truce isn't far away has contributed to the Russian ruble rising more than 20% against the dollar this year. The currency is now the strongest it's been in more than seven months.

However, a combination of sanctions and internal controls has made it tricky for Western institutional investors to bet on Russia. That has fueled demand for non-deliverable forwards that don't involve any Russian nationals or physical assets.

"The main ruble trade is in the NDF market but it is largely hedge funds participating in this trade due to the relatively low liquidity," Roger Mark, a fixed-income analyst at Ninety One, told BI.

"The rationale is clear — potential spot appreciation on the hope of the war ending and a normalization in Russia's economic relationship with the US/West," he said.

'High risk'

Still, Mark cautioned that a cease-fire is far from assured, Trump could still escalate sanctions against Moscow, the ruble has strengthened considerably already, and reopening Russia to the world could lead to capital flowing out instead of in.

"With sanctions risks still meaningful amid an uncertain policy outlook, it remains a high-risk currency for institutional investors to allocate to, especially given its poor liquidity and off-benchmark nature," Mark said.

Betting on Russian assets also poses legal and reputational risks to investors if they act too soon, and even if Russia and Ukraine lay down arms, there's no guarantee that conflict won't flare up again.

"Uncertainty about the durability of any peace deal and the possibility of the reimposition of sanctions in the future could restrain such capital inflows into Russia, once the initial euphoria has passed," Prasad said.

• Warren Buffett has surpassed Bill Gates on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
• The Berkshire Hathaway CEO is up an unmatched $18.7 billion this year to $161 billion.
• Buffett has consistently trailed Gates since the rich list launched in 2012.

Warren Buffett has overtaken Bill Gates on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index after adding an unmatched $18.7 billion to his net worth this year.

The Berkshire Hathaway CEO has climbed to sixth place on the list with a $161 billion fortune, $1 billion more than Gates. He's also the biggest wealth gainer of 2025 so far — outpacing a $17 billion rise by the TikTok investor Jeff Yass.

Buffett has consistently trailed Gates on the rich list. When the Microsoft cofounder's net worth dipped below $110 billion during a market slump in October 2022, Buffett was worth less than $100 billion.

Similarly, during the pandemic-driven crash in March 2020, Gates' wealth dipped below $95 billion, but Buffett was under $65 billion.

Even when Buffett surged to $130 billion in March 2022, Gates still had a slight edge at about $135 billion.

The earliest entries on Bloomberg's list, which began in March 2012, show Gates at $63 billion and Buffett at $44 billion.

Buffett's gain, Gates' pain

Buffett's gain this year reflects a 13% rise in Berkshire Hathaway's Class A shares, while an 8% decline in Microsoft stock has limited Gates' wealth increase to $1.3 billion.

The Trump administration's policies have reignited inflation and recession fears, spurring investors to sell riskier technology stocks and reconsider more conservatively valued stocks such as Berkshire.

Last year, Berkshire Hathaway nearly doubled its stockpile of cash, Treasury bills, and other liquid assets to $334 billion. It sold a net $134 billion worth of stocks and spent less than $3 billion on share buybacks, halting repurchases entirely in the second half of the year.

While Buffett may be ahead now, Gates has typically led him in wealth rankings even outside Bloomberg's. Gates topped Forbes' annual list of the 400 richest Americans on 25 occasions, including a 24-year streak from 1994 to 2017. Buffett, in contrast, has ranked first only once, in 1993.

Giving it away

Since 2006, Buffett has donated about 57% of his Berkshire shares, which make up virtually all of his personal wealth — primarily to four of his family's foundations and the Gates Foundation.

Those shares would be worth $207 billion based on Berkshire's stock price at Friday's close. If Buffett had retained those shares, he'd be the world's richest person, with a fortune in excess of $360 billion, comfortably surpassing Elon Musk's $320 billion estimated net worth.

Gates and his ex-wife, Melinda French Gates, had given nearly $60 billion to their foundation as of 2023.

Regulatory disclosures show that Gates owned about 1.3% of Microsoft before stepping down as director in 2020. Most of his wealth is now held in Cascade Investment, a holding company he funded with Microsoft stock sales and dividends.

Musk remains the world's richest person, with a roughly $102 billion lead on Bloomberg's list over Jeff Bezos, who's in second place, despite Musk being the biggest wealth loser this year with a $112 billion decline.

Meta's Mark Zuckerberg is just $4 billion behind in third spot, with an estimated $214 billion, following a $7.2 billion increase this year.

• Rich people often fear their kids will grow up to be spoiled, entitled, and ungrateful.
• Ben Affleck said he keeps his teenager grounded by reminding him: "I have the money, you're broke."
• Shaquille O'Neal, Jerry Seinfeld, Chris Tucker, and Warren Buffett have echoed that sentiment.

Many wealthy people wrestle with how to avoid raising spoiled, entitled brats. When Ben Affleck's 13-year-old son, Samuel, showed interest in a pair of $6,000 sneakers, the "Air" actor used a classic line to give him a reality check.

"You like those because they're expensive," the movie star said as Samuel admired a pair of Dior Air Jordan 1 shoes at the Got Sole sneaker convention earlier this month. The comments surfaced in a video posted to the Got Sole Instagram account.

When his son protested that he's always liked how they look, Affleck quipped, "That's a lot of lawns you gotta mow there."

The "Gone Girl" lead and "Argo" director said in an "Access Hollywood" interview this week that telling someone they'll need to mow a lawn means "all of a sudden they don't want those shoes anymore."

"There's always some grift why I need to be buying," Affleck continued. "I'm like, bruh, you do not need $1,000 shoes. He's like, 'We have the money.' I'm like, 'I have the money — you're broke.'"

Mine, not yours

The two-time Oscar winner is the latest celebrity to issue a reminder that their vast fortunes belong to them, and not their children. They typically want to instill in their kids a work ethic and drive to earn what they want in life. They don't want them to be lazy, not appreciate the value of money, and take it for granted that whatever they want will be given to them.

Along similar lines, Warren Buffett wrote last year that "hugely wealthy parents should leave their children enough so they can do anything but not enough that they can do nothing."

Basketball icon Shaquille O'Neal said on the "Earn Your Leisure" podcast in 2021 that he frequently tells his kids, "We ain't rich. I'm rich."

The former Los Angeles Lakers center added that if one of them wants him to invest in a business, they have to present it to him and he'll decide if it makes financial sense: "I'm not giving you nothing."

Similarly, comedy legend Jerry Seinfeld told Kevin Hart during a "Comedians in Cars Getting Coffee" episode that if his children ask him if they're rich, he replies, "I am, you're not."

"Rush Hour" star and comedian Chris Tucker made a similar joke in his "Chris Tucker Live" standup special for Netflix in 2015. He quipped that his family members quit their jobs after learning he was making millions of dollars a year, and mimicked them chanting, "We rich! We rich! We ain't gotta do shit!"

Tucker's response was, "Y'all ain't rich, I'm rich. Y'all better get your jobs back before it's too late."

The pointed reminder about who makes the money in a family dates back at least three decades to "The Cosby Show."

"None of this would have happened if we weren't so rich," complains Vanessa Huxtable in one episode.

"Let me get something straight, okay," her father says. "Your mother and I are rich. You have nothing."

Affleck riffed on a timeless reminder with a rich history to check his son's privilege and keep him grounded. Whether it will work is another question.

• Warren Buffett's railroad has been hit by thieves who've looted more than $4 million of merchandise.
• They've stolen Nike sneakers, Turtle Beach gaming headsets, and Squishmallows, court filings show.
• Organized crime groups board BNSF trains, break open locked containers, and force emergency stops.

Warren Buffett's railroad company is being targeted by thieves who've made off with sneakers, gaming headsets, and other merchandise worth more than $4 million in the past two years, federal authorities say.

Burlington Northern Santa Fe, owned by Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway conglomerate, has been hit repeatedly by gangs with apparent links to the Sinaloa Cartel, the Mexican organized-crime group formerly led by drug lord Joaquín "El Chapo" Guzmán.

The heists primarily occur in the southwestern US and have surged since 2023, according to multiple complaints filed in Phoenix federal court. The crime spree was first reported by the Los Angeles Times.

The train robbers identify high-security containers on eastbound BNSF trains from California's Interstate 40. They board and use saws, bolt-cutters, and other tools to break into the boxes and gain access to expensive footwear, tools, and electronics.

Next, they cut the train's braking system air hose to force the driver to make an emergency stop. Then, they pull the products off the train and hide them nearby for their colleagues to load into box trucks at a later point. The merch is then hauled off to be sold or fenced to resellers, court filings show.

On January 13, a BNSF police officer spotted boxes containing more than 1,000 pairs of Nike shoes next to the rail tracks and worked with authorities to place trackers in four of them. Officials later recovered 150 cases of Nigel Sylvester x Air Jordan 4 "Brick by Brick" worth an estimated $202,500 in a nearby van and also stopped a U-Haul containing shoes worth tens of thousands of dollars more. The shoe model was scheduled for release on March 14.

In April 2024, police recovered nearly 1,200 pairs of Nike shoes worth about $226,000. Two months later, they took down an alleged gang leader and reclaimed $3 million worth of merchandise believed to have been taken from BNSF trains. The items were found in storage units and residential homes and included 74 cases of Nike shoes and 108 packs of Nike socks.

In July 2023, authorities recovered 904 boxes of Turtle Beach Stealth Pro headsets, worth almost $600,000, which had been loaded into a landscaping truck and stashed in a nearby Motel 6.

Filings show that in other seizures, officials reclaimed about $48,000 worth of Nike's "Dunk Low Midnight Navy" shoes and six boxes of "Disney NBC Jack Squish" — likely a reference to "The Nightmare Before Christmas" character Jack Skellington as a Squishmallow.

Authorities have arrested several people in connection with the BNSF thefts, including 11 accused of involvement in the January heist and one man they believe to be a ringleader, but the thefts have continued.

"BNSF has robust security protocols, and our police department is focused on preventing these incidents on our network," a company spokesperson told Business Insider. "We are working with federal, state, local, and tribal police departments to coordinate our approach to disrupting criminal activity and arresting offenders."

"It's essential that the entire criminal justice system, including policymakers, district attorneys, and judges, focus on this crime trend and help to ensure these criminals are held responsible and prosecuted," the spokesperson said. "These are not victimless crimes, particularly when many of these packages include much-needed medicine, food, and critical supplies necessary for everyday life."

Cargo thefts cost the biggest railroads more than $100 million last year, according to the Association of American Railroads. There were more than 65,000 thefts in 2024, about 40% more than in 2023, the industry group said.

Buffett, one of the world's wealthiest people worth more than $150 billion, oversaw Berkshire's acquisition of BNSF in 2010. The company's railroad system spans 28 states, generating nearly $24 billion in revenue and about $5 billion in net income last year.

• Most of the world's biggest billionaires have suffered wealth declines this year as stocks have fallen.
• Susquehanna's Jeff Yass bucks the trend with an unmatched $17.2 billion rise due to ByteDance's valuation.
• The poker fan who backed Trump's campaign is now the richest man in finance after Warren Buffett.

Many of the world's wealthiest people have taken heavy blows to their personal fortunes this year as recession fears continue to weigh on stocks. Yet one Wall Street titan has leaped up the rich list, growing his net worth more than anybody else.

Jeff Yass, the cofounder of Susquehanna International Group, has gained an unmatched $17.2 billion in wealth this year as of Wednesday's close, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

In contrast, Elon Musk has had $113 billion wiped off his net worth as Tesla stock has tanked 39% this year. Oracle's Larry Ellison, Amazon's Jeff Bezos, Dell Technologies' Michael Dell, Alphabet's Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Nvidia's Jensen Huang, and Microsoft's Steve Ballmer have each had at least $12 billion of their wealth erased too.

Yass' gain this year has boosted his personal fortune from about $47 billion to $63 billion, ranking him 23rd on the wealth index. He's now the richest man in finance after Warren Buffett, the fourth-biggest gainer with a $13.4 billion rise this year.

The wealth surge for Yass, 66, stems from an early investment in ByteDance. He still owns about 7% of the Chinese social media company behind TikTok. ByteDance intends to repurchase employees' shares at a valuation of about $312 billion, up from $268 billion at the end of 2023, Bloomberg recently reported.

Moreover, ByteDance investors SoftBank, Fidelity, and T. Rowe Price have raised their internal valuation estimates to north of $400 billion. The upshot is Yass' reported stake may have jumped in value by roughly 50% in a little over a year.

Susquehanna is also worth almost $50 billion, and Yass owns upward of 51% of the firm, regulatory filings show. Yass didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

Yass is a Republican mega-donor who supported President Donald Trump's campaign. He's benefited from the US leader's decision to extend the deadline for ByteDance to sell TikTok and its US operations over national security concerns.

Trump said last year that banning TikTok would make young Americans "go crazy," and he didn't want Mark Zuckerberg's Meta to sweep in and take its place.

Art Dantchik, who cofounded Susquehanna with Yass and is also a ByteDance director, has seen his wealth jump by $6.5 billion to reach almost $17 billion this year, putting him in 122nd place on the rich list.

Yass, 66, is the son of two accountants and graduated as a math major, he says in a video on Susquehanna's YouTube channel. He moved to Las Vegas and spent about 18 months playing poker before becoming an independent options trader. After realizing how lucrative the sector was, he recruited his poker buddies from college to work at his own firm.

Games remain a core part of Susquehanna's culture, according to its website. Employees can take part in board game nights, complete puzzles dotted around the office, and compete in an annual poker tournament. Managers also use strategy games to teach lessons to new employees.

• Warren Buffett is being praised for paring Apple and stacking cash before the market slumped.
• Social media is full of Buffett quotes about market downturns and memes featuring the investor.
• Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway sold a net $134 billion of stocks in 2024 and built a record cash pile.

Warren Buffett has sparked a raft of comments and memes on social media after the legendary investor sold most of his massive Apple stake and built a record cash pile before the stock market tumbled earlier this week.

Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway nearly doubled its stockpile of cash, Treasury bills, and other liquid assets last year to $334 billion (or $321 billion if you subtract payables for T-bill purchases).

The conglomerate's cash hoard ballooned largely because it sold a net $134 billion of stocks in 2024, and spent less than $3 billion on buybacks, halting them entirely in the second half. For comparison, it sold a net $24 billion of stocks and repurchased more than $9 billion worth of Berkshire stock in 2023.

"Despite what some commentators currently view as an extraordinary cash position at Berkshire, the great majority of your money remains in equities," Buffett reassured Berkshire shareholders in his annual letter in February, referring to both the stocks and businesses that his company owns.

Buffett didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.

Sell, sell, sell

Berkshire owned about 906 million shares of Apple worth $174 billion at the start of 2024, meaning the iPhone maker accounted for 49% of the total value of its stock portfolio. Over the next nine months, it cut its top holding by 67% to 300 million shares, worth $75 billion at the end of December.

Buffett and his team also pared their No. 2 holding, Bank of America, by 34% to 680 million shares in the second half of 2024, cutting the position's value from $41 billion to just under $30 billion.

As of Tuesday's close, Apple and Bank of America shares have dropped 15% and 20% each from their November highs.

Apple is still up 15% since the start of 2024, however, meaning Buffett left money on the table by cashing out when he did. If he kept his stake intact throughout 2024 it would be worth nearly $200 billion.

Bank of America is trading around the $40 mark, as it was at the end of June last year, meaning Buffett probably hasn't won or lost big from selling.

There's nothing to say the market sell-off, which has pulled the S&P 500 down 9% and the Nasdaq Composite down 13% from their record closes on February 19, won't worsen as the Trump administration's policies continue to fuel recession fears.

Moreover, it's important to consider where Buffett has invested the sale proceeds. Owning Treasurys is more lucrative than in the past; the one-year yield has jumped from under 1% to over 4% in just over three years, primarily because rising inflation spurred the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates to relieve upward pressure on prices.

"But I don't mind at all, under current conditions, building the cash position," Buffett said at Berkshire's annual meeting last year. "I think when I look at the alternative of what's available in the equity markets, and I look at the composition of what's going on in the world, we find it quite attractive."

Buffett is a long-term investor who's owned stocks such as Coca-Cola and American Express for decades. It's unlikely he pared his portfolio because he saw trouble coming and wanted to cash out before the next market crash — and he probably won't care much about a few months of stock performance.

He's publicly soured on banks and pointed to higher bond yields and the prospect of steeper taxes on capital gains as two reasons he was happy to take some Apple profits and buy Treasurys instead. He's also explained his growing cash pile reflects a dearth of bargains with both private and public companies trading at heady valuations.

It's also worth noting that quarterly portfolio filings provide limited insight into an investor's strategy. They're only a snapshot of their holdings on a single day with a six-week lag, and they exclude shares sold short, foreign-listed stocks, private investments, and nonstock assets.

Even if Buffett isn't selling stocks and stacking cash because he expects a market downturn, his bearish positioning could still make him a winner if this one continues.

Not only will the strategy temper the impact on his stock portfolio, but it means he'll have plenty of dry powder to deploy on cut-price businesses and discounted stocks, as he did during the financial crisis.

Words to remember

Buffett's social media followers aren't only applauding the timing of his Apple sales and cash build. Probably in a bid to shore up market sentiment, they're lining up to quote his famous advice to "be greedy when others are fearful."

Moreover, they're sharing the column he published in the depths of the financial crisis, in which he urged others to buy stocks on the cheap.

Buffett has also won plaudits for getting wealthier when many of his billionaire peers are taking big blows to their fortunes. That reflects a 9% rise in Berkshire stock this year while many blue-chip tech stocks have declined.

The "Oracle of Omaha" has often faced skepticism and claims that he's lost his touch during previous booms. Now the market mood has turned, he's back in fashion.

• Eight tech titans have taken a $266 billion blow to their collective wealth this year.
• Their combined net worth fell by $64 billion on Monday as the Nasdaq had its worst day since 2022.
• Elon Musk has had $132 billion, or 30% of his fortune, erased in 2025 following Tesla's stock slide.

Eight tech billionaires have seen their combined fortunes shrink by an estimated $266 billion this year as President Donald Trump's policies continue to spook investors.

That figure exceeds the market value of most of America's largest companies including Salesforce, McDonald's, and Wells Fargo.

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk leads the list of wealth losers, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. The world's richest person has had $132 billion, or 30% of his fortune, wiped out in the past 10 weeks following the 45% slide in Tesla stock in that period.

Amazon's Jeff Bezos, Oracle's Larry Ellison, Dell Technologies' Michael Dell, and Nvidia's Jensen Huang have each seen more than $20 billion erased from their respective net worths this year as their companies' stock prices have tumbled. Amazon and Oracle are both down about 11%, while Dell and Nvidia have slumped by north of 20%.

Rounding out the group are Alphabet cofounders Larry Page and Sergey Brin — down about $18 billion and $17 billion each this year following a 12% drop in shares of Google's parent company —and Steve Ballmer, who's down about $13 billion after a 10% decline in Microsoft stock.

The eight tech titans' collective net worth fell by $64 billion on Monday alone as the Nasdaq Composite slid 4%, its steepest one-day loss since 2022.

The sell-off was sparked by Trump cautioning there would be a "period of transition" for the US economy in a Fox News interview on Sunday.

The president didn't rule out a recession when asked if he expected one this year. He said his focus was on strengthening America and achieving long-term prosperity: "You can't really watch the stock market."

Trump's sweeping economic agenda is focused on equalizing US trade relations using tariffs, curtailing immigration, lifting regulations, cutting taxes, and downsizing the federal government. His policies have reignited inflation fears and stoked recession worries.

The increased uncertainty has dampened the buzz around AI that had lifted tech stocks and the wider market to record highs this year. One consequence is the world's 16 wealthiest people are worth $236 billion less than they were at the start of January after a $87 billion decline on Monday, per Bloomberg's rich list.

Microsoft's Bill Gates and Meta's Mark Zuckerberg were still up between $4 billion and $5 billion for the year at Monday's close. The Facebook cofounder took a $9.5 billion wealth hit on the day — second only to Musk's $29 billion blow.

Three others on the list are in the green for 2025 as they're less exposed to tech: Berkshire Hathaway's Warren Buffett is up about $14 billion, while LVMH's Bernard Arnault and Inditex's Amancio Ortega are up between $6 billion and $7 billion.

The richest of the rich shouldn't feel too sorry for themselves, as they had a stellar 2024. The top 10 billionaires at the end of December were up more than $500 billion for the year, and worth a combined $2 trillion — about as much as Amazon or Alphabet.