• President Donald Trump is blaming former President Joe Biden for any downturn in the markets.
• "This is Biden's Stock Market, not Trump's. I didn't take over until January 20th," he said on Truth Social.
• In recent weeks, Trump has sought to reassure the public over the fallout from his tariff strategy.

President Donald Trump on Wednesday blamed former President Joe Biden for the poor performance of the stock market during the first 100 days of his second term.

In a morning post on his Truth Social platform, Trump defended his economic policies while urging Americans to "be patient," amid news that the US economy also contracted in the first quarter of the year.

"This is Biden's Stock Market, not Trump's. I didn't take over until January 20th," he wrote. "Tariffs will soon start kicking in, and companies are starting to move into the USA in record numbers. Our Country will boom, but we have to get rid of the Biden 'Overhang.'"

"This will take a while, has NOTHING TO DO WITH TARIFFS, only that he left us with bad numbers, but when the boom begins, it will be like no other," he added.

In January 2024, when Biden was still in office, Trump said investors saw him as the likely winner of that year's presidential election and dubbed that market the "Trump stock market."

Trump's current tariff plan, which has continued to evolve ever since his April 2 "Liberation Day" speech, led to fluctuations in the stock and bond markets throughout the month.

Trump on Tuesday celebrated the first 100 days of his presidency, touting his work on issues such as immigration and the overhaul of the federal bureaucracy.

But the US economy shrank by 0.3% in the first quarter, weighed down by tariff fears and sparking concerns about a recession.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average has slipped nearly 7% since Trump took office in January, the worst performance at the onset of a presidency since Richard Nixon's abbreviated second term in 1973, according to Dow Jones Market Data. Through April 28, the S&P 500 has declined nearly 8% since Trump took office for his second stint in the White House.

• Bridgewater's investing chiefs say a changing world is threatening markets and portfolios.
• The hedge fund trio sees "exceptional risks" to US assets and a rising chance of recession.
• Founder Ray Dalio said an "unsustainable imbalance" in the US-China relationship must be resolved.

The world's biggest hedge fund has sounded the alarm on a seismic global shift, warning investors they're dangerously exposed and must adapt to the new reality.

Bridgewater Associates' three co-chief investors — Bob Prince, Greg Jensen, and Karen Karniol-Tambour — issued the dramatic caution in their latest letter to clients and included an excerpt in a company newsletter this week.

The trio said the transition to a "new macroeconomic and geopolitical paradigm" is roiling markets, reshaping capital flows, and threatening the status quo.

The world is moving from the post-war era of globalization and free trade to one of "modern mercantilism," they said. The Trump administration's efforts to disrupt multinationals and upturn trade and security agreements as part of its "America First" agenda are accelerating the change, they continued.

Prince, Jensen, and Karniol-Tambour predicted governments would increasingly intervene in their economies, using trade, foreign, and industrial policy to support companies and sectors that fit their strategic mission to "increase wealth, strength, and self-sufficiency."

The shift poses an "urgent threat" to markets and investors' portfolios, they said. "Today's mix of global assets reflects the winners from the past paradigm, which were largely assets like US equities that benefited from rising growth, a proactive Fed, and US outperformance."

The three investment gurus cautioned that many portfolios appear vulnerable to weaker growth, reduced central bank flexibility, stocks underperforming, and US assets trailing foreign rivals.

"We expect a policy-induced slowdown, with rising probability of a recession," they said, suggesting the Federal Reserve won't be able to cut interest rates as freely as some other central banks given the risk of resurgent inflation. They also flagged that the stock market is still pricing in strong earnings for companies even though they're "under threat."

"We see exceptional risks to US assets, which are dependent on foreign inflows," they said, nodding to the vast amount of overseas money invested in American stocks and bonds.

Bridgewater's bosses pointed to AI as another driver of global change, but they said it's "too soon to say who the winners will be and if they will hold on to their winnings."

They drew a parallel to the early stages of the dot-com boom. While the early promises of the internet were eventually realized, US stocks underperformed Treasurys, gold, and emerging market equities in the 15 years after 1998, they said. They added that most of the dominant tech stocks of that period trailed the broader market, too.

"Beautiful rebalancing"

Ray Dalio, Bridgewater's billionaire founder and the official mentor to its three investment heads, has been heralding a change in the world order for some time.

In a LinkedIn post on Thursday, Dalio said he dreamed of US-China trade negotiations leading to a "beautiful rebalancing."

He diagnosed the problem as the US being overdependent on cheap manufactured goods from countries including China, which had eroded its manufacturing base and hurt a large segment of its population. China, meanwhile, had become too reliant on selling to and investing in the US and other countries.

"This is an unsustainable imbalance that one way or another — i.e., in a coordinated, well-managed way or in a crash — must come to an end," Dalio said.

The US needed to cut the deficit, boost manufacturing, reduce consumption, and lower its debt burden to rectify the imbalance — and he hoped it could work with China to do so.

• 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.

• 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."

• 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.

• Top economists including Paul Krugman criticized Trump's plan to impose tariffs on Canada and Mexico.
• The pair said import taxes would damage trust in the US, while Robert Reich said Trump had ill intent.
• Steve Hanke said Americans pay for tariffs, and they don't increase employment.

Prominent economists including Paul Krugman, Larry Summers, Steve Hanke and Robert Reich have been airing their views on President Donald Trump's plan to impose tariffs on imports from Canada and Mexico.

Trump said the plan to impose 25% levies on tariffs on most goods entering the US from its northern and southern neighbors, and a 10% tariff on Chinese imports, could cause "some pain" but would be "worth the price."

They were due to take effect on Tuesday, but Mexican president Claudia Sheinbaum said Monday they would be delayed by a month following a "good conversation" with Trump.

Damaging trust

Krugman, a winner of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, said in a Substack post that tariffs threaten global faith in America.

"And even if some of the tariffs prove temporary, the Rubicon has been crossed," he wrote. "We now know that when the United States signs an agreement, on trade or anything else, the president will treat that agreement as a mere suggestion to be ignored whenever he feels like it. That revelation in itself will do huge long-term damage."

The former MIT and Princeton University professor also cautioned the modest slump in stocks on Monday might herald a steeper sell-off. "This market complacency is a self-defeating prophecy: muted market reaction makes it likely that Trump will continue and expand his trade war," Krugman said.

Price pain and economic fallout

Summers, a former US Treasury chief and Harvard University president, said on X the tariffs were "inexplicable and dangerous."

They stand to raise the prices that Americans pay for many things including cars and gas, make US firms less competitive, stymie job creation, increase unemployment, and trigger retaliation from other countries that harms the US economy, he said.

They could also destabilize the Mexican economy, spurring more of its citizens to head for the US border, and lead to other countries viewing the US as a "bad partner" that's willing to "arbitrarily impost tariffs as a form of hostage-taking for leverage," Summers said.

In a follow-up post, Summers said that "bullying doesn't win over time on the playground or in the international arena." He said this "self-inflicted supply shock" was a gift to Chinese leader Xi Jinping and made China look relatively better to the rest of the world.

He added that price hikes could accelerate overall inflation and force the Federal Reserve to hike interest rates instead of cutting them, curbing economic growth.

'Hidden tax'

Steve Hanke, a professor of applied economics at Johns Hopkins University, wrote on X that research shows US consumers and businesses — not foreign exporters — pay virtually the entire cost of tariffs.

"Tariffs = a hidden tax on Americans," wrote the former economic advisor to Ronald Reagan.

Hanke also dismissed the idea of a domestic jobs boom. "The idea that tariffs will increase jobs is nonsense. Manufacturing output in the US is up, but manufacturing jobs have been declining for the last 40 years — tariffs or no tariffs."

He added that tariffs rob Americans of purchasing power.

Moreover, the president's tariffs threaten the entire North American economy and thus growth, inflation, and investor and business confidence across the world, Peel Hunt economists said in a research note.

"Although the US appears strong, momentum is narrowly driven by fiscal excesses and consumer exuberance," senior economist Kallum Pickering and his team wrote. "If tariffs lead to a spike in bond yields that, in turn, prick the US equity market bubble, the need for sudden fiscal discipline and a more cautious consumer could destabilise the upswing."

"Whether it happens through inflation, higher interest rates, or increased future taxes to cover the deficit-financed tax cuts which Trump proposes to offset the import levies, US consumers will pay for tariffs," they added.

Money and power

Reich, who advocated for the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) during his tenure as labor secretary, said on his Substack that Trump is using tariffs to demonstrate his power and unpredictability.

Reich said Trump's actions tend to be for his own benefit. He dishes out tax cuts and regulatory relief to US executives, and special treatment on trade, energy, and intelligence to foreign oligarchs, in exchange for lucrative business deals, information, campaign funds, and positive publicity, Reich said.

"Trump says he's doing this for American workers," Reich wrote. "Nothing could be farther from the truth. He's doing this for himself and for the world's oligarchy, which, in turn, is busily siphoning off the wealth of the world."

• Attendees at the World Economic Forum have given Europe's economy a serious bashing this week.
• They've blasted the red tape and bemoaned the cultural aversion to taking risks and praising loudly.
• Here's what Donald Trump, Larry Fink, Steve Schwarzman, Christine Lagarde, and others said.

The US economy is the toast of Davos, while Europe has been thrown to the wolves at the elite gathering in the Swiss Alps this week.

World leaders, business titans, and policy gurus have hailed America's resilient growth, can-do culture, free-flowing capital, and bright prospects if President Trump succeeds in bolstering investment and cutting regulations.

In contrast, they called out widespread pessimism, siloed markets, suffocating regulations, and an aversion to taking risks and shouting out successes in Europe.

Here are some of the best comments from Davos about Europe:

1. Donald Trump, US President

"They're very frustrated because of the time everything seems to take to get approved," Trump said about his European friends and acquaintances.

"I love Europe, I love the countries of Europe, but the process is a very cumbersome one, and they do treat the United States of America very, very unfairly with the VAT taxes and all of the other taxes they impose."

2. Larry Fink, BlackRock CEO

"There's too much pessimism in Europe," Fink said, based on his conversations with Davos attendees. "I've never felt the pessimism being larger and more profound."

"Europe is a myth," he said, calling out its fragmented capital and banking markets, and its lack of dynamism and entrepreneurship relative to countries like the US and China.

"I don't see Europe moving forward enough; I see Europe still focusing on backward looking too much."

3. Christine Lagarde, European Central Bank president

Lagarde said corporate bosses are "not very upbeat" about Europe as they're worried about issues including energy prices and excessive red tape.

Their concerns should be a "wake-up call that we Europeans, those in policymaking places, have to really take to heart and respond fast to," she said.

"So if the European leaders can actually get their act together, respond to this wake up call and existential threat that can be identified, then I think that there is a huge potential for Europe to respond to the call."

4. Kristalina Georgieva, International Monetary Fund managing director

Georgieva described the IMF's economic forecast for Europe over the next couple of years as "sort of meh, not great."

"United States has a culture of confidence; Europe has a culture of modesty," Georgieva said. She joked the highest praise she ever received from her parents was "not too bad" while in the US, "you just move your legs and you're fantastic, you blink and you're great."

"So my advice to my fellow Europeans is more confidence, believe in yourself, and most importantly tell others that you do."

5. Christian Ulbrich, JLL CEO

Ulbrich, whose company works in real estate and investment management, told Business Insider at Davos that European officials seemed prouder to announce regulations on artificial intelligence than to reveal big investments in the tech.

He said that "demonstrates very nicely the difference in culture: The Americans are looking first to the opportunity, and the Europeans tend to look first toward the risk."

6. Steve Schwarzman, Blackstone CEO

"A lot of the European businesspeople have expressed enormous frustration with the regulatory regime in the EU," Schwarzman said, adding that they especially blame bureaucracy for slower growth rates in Europe.

7. Ilham Kadri, CEO of Syensqo and president of the European Chemical Industry Council

Kadri said that since she moved to Europe in 2019, there've been "19,000 pages of regulation published just for the chemical industry," and she's been "hiring more people in the legal and compliance departments than in my innovation department."

The executive said that small and midsize businesses can't deal with the "soup of alphabet of reporting" requirements, and the bureaucratic burden is "destroying the fabric of the industry."

Kadri called for a major simplification of the rules and removal of red tape to improve transparency and predictability, which she said would improve efficiency and drive investment.

• The US economy is in for a "wild ride" with Donald Trump back in office, Kenneth Rogoff says.
• The Harvard economist told the World Economic Forum that the dollar faces a slew of challenges.
• Rogoff spoke about tariffs, inflation, interest rates, currency wars, and the national debt.

Kenneth Rogoff says the US economy is in for a "wild ride" now that Donald Trump is back in charge — and the dollar may come under pressure.

The Harvard University economist flagged several challenges ahead during a session focused on the dollar at the World Economic Forum's annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland on Tuesday.

Rogoff said the idea that interest rates will steadily fall is a "pipe dream at this point." The Federal Reserve raised its benchmark rate from virtually zero to as high as 5.5% within an 18-month period to curb post-pandemic inflation, and has only cut them by a percentage point.

The former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund raised the alarm on the US national debt, which has more than tripled over the past two decades to more than $36 trillion.

"I think the debt does push up interest rates," he said, nodding to the idea that the federal government may have to pay more interest on its bonds to keep attracting buyers, and its competition with the private sector and state and local governments for funds could drive up rates.

Debt debate

Rogoff pointed to the 1970s as a cautionary tale. The dollar "lost a lot of territory" as inflation spurred the Fed to raise rates to nearly 20%. There could be similar fallout "if things get out of control again," he warned.

Both US political parties "think debt is a free lunch," Rogoff said, adding that he believed they're "wrong" and one likely consequence will be elevated rates.

A record debt pile and rising rates have increased the federal government's annual interest payments, which exceeded $1 trillion or more than its entire military budget last year, he noted.

"At some point, this is one of the potential triggers for having more inflation," Rogoff said. "That's going to undermine the dollar" as it did in the 1970s, he predicted, as there's "potential for a lot of instability" stemming from America's debt pile.

Rogoff said the impact of Trump's planned tariffs on interest rates and global exchange rates is likely baked into markets already, but how other countries retaliate is not.

The academic said Trump's first-term tariffs caused the Fed to worry about inflation and whether rates were high enough, and that could happen again, pushing back the timeline for further rate cuts.

Dollar doubts

Rogoff also addressed concerns about de-dollarization and declining dollar dominance as other countries explore alternatives to the world's reserve currency.

The greenback is very strong by historical standards, setting it up to weaken simply due to a likely reversion to the mean, he said.

Trump's warnings to other nations to keep using the buck might also backfire. "I would guess it's not good for the dollar; you want people to use your currency," Rogoff said. "If you're being threatened, I think that only reinforces the incentive to try and diversify into doing other things."

He also touched on how the dollar comes into its own during moments of distress such as the global financial crisis and pandemic. Other nations realize the value of being in the Fed's good books and having access to dollars during crises.

However, Rogoff also cautioned that the dollar's unusual strength might prove short-lived: "Whoever it is that's being put up on the pedestal by the world, they're the ones that are first in line perhaps to have a crash coming."

Rogoff wondered out loud whether Davos attendees might be discussing the dollar's weakness and the US economy's collapse a couple of years from now.

• Michael Burry stayed quiet, bet big on Chinese tech giants, and saw one stock wager pay off in 2024.
• The investor of "The Big Short" fame boosted his Alibaba and JD.com stakes and bought into Baidu.
• The RealReal stock has surged more than sevenfold since Burry invested in early 2023.

Michael Burry kept a low profile, plowed money into three Chinese tech giants, and saw a long-standing stock bet pay off in 2024.

Who is Michael Burry?

Burry is best known for predicting and profiting from the collapse of the housing bubble in the mid-2000s. His contrarian wager was immortalized in the book and film "The Big Short."

He's also famous in financial circles for predicting market crashes and recessions, investing in GameStop long before the video-game retailer became a meme stock. He also bet against Elon Musk's Tesla, Cathie Wood's flagship Ark fund, Apple, a microchip fund containing Nvidia, and the S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 indexes in recent years.

Burry goes by Cassandra B.C. on X — a nod to the priestess in Greek mythology who was cursed to utter true prophecies but never to be believed.

Staying quiet

In years past, Burry frequently shared his thoughts on the markets, economy, and other subjects using X.

For example, he warned of the "greatest speculative bubble of all time in all things" in the summer of 2021, and told buyers of meme stocks and cryptocurrencies that they were careening toward the "mother of all crashes."

Burry even caught Musk's attention with the Tesla and SpaceX CEO calling him a "broken clock" in late 2021. Moreover, the investor set alarm bells ringing on Wall Street in early 2023 with a one-word post: "Sell."

However, Burry didn't post at all last year, and hasn't shared anything with the 1.4 million followers of his primary account since April 2023.

Chinese trio

Burry's Scion Asset Management revealed in a first-quarter portfolio update it had boosted its bets on Alibaba and JD.com, two Chinese e-commerce titans. It also established a small position in Baidu, a search giant that's been dubbed the "Chinese Google."

The Scion chief added to both the Alibaba and Baidu positions in the second quarter while paring his JD.com stake, but then ramped up all three wagers in the third quarter.

In the 12 months to September 2024, Scion quadrupled both its Alibaba and JD.com stakes. It went from owning 50,000 Alibaba shares worth $4.4 million to 200,000 shares worth $21.2 million.

It raised its JD.com position from 125,000 shares worth $3.6 million to 500,000 worth $20 million. Starting from scratch, it also amassed 125,000 Baidu shares worth $13.2 million in the nine months to September.

Those three stocks accounted for 65% of the total $83 million value of Scion's portfolio, excluding options, at the end of September. Burry hedged his highly concentrated portfolio by purchasing put options against the three stocks with a notional value of $47 million in the third quarter.

Burry, a value investor who hunts for bargains, may have pounced on the trio because he views them as undervalued. Chinese stocks have been hit by regulatory threats, concerns about the country's slowing economy and real estate crisis, rising geopolitical jitters, and skepticism about the government's stimulus plans.

It's worth pointing out that quarterly portfolio filings only paint a partial picture of an investor's holdings. They exclude shares sold short, private investments, foreign-listed stocks, and non-stock assets like bonds and real estate. They're also only a snapshot of the portfolio on a single day in a three-month period.

Patience pays off

Apart from Alibaba and JD.com, the only stock that Scion held onto for all of 2024 was The RealReal, an online luxury goods marketplace.

The stock has featured in Scion's portfolio since the first quarter of 2023, when the firm owned about 684,000 shares worth about $862,000, or $1.26 each.

Scion still owned 500,000 shares at the end of September, worth nearly $1.6 million at that time. The stock has jumped from a little over $3 then to $8.73 at Wednesday's close.

The upshot is Burry has likely made several times his money on The RealReal, especially if he was still holding the stock when it surged last quarter.

• Warren Buffett paid tribute to Charlie Munger and pared his Apple and Bank of America bets in 2024.
• Berkshire Hathaway hit a $1 trillion market value and its cash pile ballooned to more than $300 billion.
• Buffett donated some $6 billion to good causes and updated his plan for post-mortem giving.

Warren Buffett had a year to remember in 2024 as he sold two of his favorite stocks, built his cash pile to more than $300 billion, and led Berkshire Hathaway to a $1 trillion market value for the first time.

The 94-year-old Berkshire CEO and legendary investor also paid credit to his late right-hand man, gifted more than $6 billion to good causes, and updated his plan to give away his fortune following his death.

Here are Buffett's 6 highlights of 2024:

1. Paying respects

In his annual letter in February, Buffett paid tribute to Charlie Munger, his business partner and Berkshire's vice chairman for more than four decades, who died aged 99 in November 2023.

"Though I have long been in charge of the construction crew; Charlie should forever be credited with being the architect," Buffett wrote, calling himself the "general contractor" who carried out Munger's vision for Berkshire.

Buffett also dashed hopes for a transformative acquisition anytime soon. Berkshire's vast scale means only a few companies in the country could move the needle, he said, and all of them have been "endlessly picked over by us and others."

"All in all, we have no possibility of eye-popping performance."

The investor also called out a rise in "casino-like behavior" in markets and appeared to take aim at trading apps like Robinhood once again. "The casino now resides in many homes and daily tempts the occupants."

2. Pilgrimage to Omaha

Tens of thousands of Berkshire shareholders descended on Buffett's hometown in May to attend the company's annual meeting and watch the "Oracle of Omaha" hold court for several hours.

Buffett told the crowd he'd sold a chunk of his massive Apple stake in the first quarter. He also compared artificial intelligence to nuclear weapons, and took responsibility for a losing wager on Paramount.

The Berkshire boss said he regretted not listening to Munger and betting big on Costco decades ago. He also raised the alarm on the national debt and budget deficit, dismissed foreign threats to the dollar, and declared he could earn a 50% annual return on $1 million.

3. Stocks, cash, and buybacks

Buffett and his team sold $133 billion of stocks in the first nine months of 2024, and bought less than $6 billion worth. In comparison, they sold a net $24 billion of stocks in 2023, and purchased a net $34 billion of stocks in 2022.

They spent less than $3 billion on buybacks between January and September last year, with none in the third quarter, after spending nearly $70 billion on repurchases over the previous four years (almost $52 billion of that was in 2020 and 2021.)

Ramping up stock sales and curbing buybacks helped to nearly double Berkshire's cash pile in nine months from $168 billion to a record $325 billion (or $310 billion after subtracting almost $15 billion of payables for Treasury bill purchases in the third quarter).

Berkshire's cash pile now exceeds the total value of the company just over a decade ago, and accounted for a hefty 27% of its $1.15 trillion of assets at the end of September.

Buffett and his colleagues have said they're stacking cash because they're struggling to find bargains with valuations at historic highs, and they don't mind keeping money out of an ebullient stock market.

4. Selling sacred cows

Buffett and his investment managers, Ted Weschler and Todd Combs, made several striking changes to Berkshire's stock portfolio last year.

They pared Apple, their largest position, by 67% in nine months, reducing its value from $174 billion to below $70 billion. The sharp reduction shocked many as Buffett had showered praise on the iPhone maker for years, hailing it as "probably the best business I know in the world" and one of Berkshire's "four giants."

Buffett and his deputies also cut Bank of America, their no. 2 position, by about 26% between mid-July and mid-October, collecting more than $10 billion of proceeds. The sales lowered their stake from above 13% to below 10%, freeing them from having to disclose changes to the holding within a couple days. Their stake only dropped in value from $35 billion to $32 billion between January and September because the bank's stock price rose by around a fifth during that period.

Berkshire also revealed a near-$7 billion stake in insurer Chubb in its first-quarter portfolio update, trimmed holdings such as Capital One in the second quarter, and bought nearly 4% of Domino's Pizza in the third quarter while cutting several smaller holdings.

5. Giving billions

Buffett donated Berkshire shares worth $5.3 billion to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and four of his family's foundations in June.

He said those gifts meant he'd now given $55 billion to the quintet over the previous 18 years, based on how much the Berkshire shares were worth at the time of giving.

Buffett divvied up a further $1.2 billion stock donation among the four family foundations in late November, continuing a Thanksgiving tradition he started in 2022.

The latest donations reduced his number of A shares to a little more than 206,000, meaning he's given away almost 57% of his shares since pledging 99% of them to good causes in 2006.

6. Estate planning

Buffett unexpectedly published a near-1,500 word letter to shareholders alongside the news of his Thanksgiving gift.

In it, he reiterated his desire to pass along his incredible wealth to "others who were given a very short straw at birth."

Buffett revealed earlier in the year that he planned to put almost his entire fortune in a trust, and task his three children with distributing it to worthy causes after he dies. But in his mini letter in November, he acknowledged that his kids are in their late 60s and early 70s and might die before they can fulfill his vision.

The investor said that risk had led him to designate three potential successor trustees to be "on the waitlist" just in case.

Buffett also took stock of the astounding scale of wealth in America, where more than a dozen people including him are personally worth in excess of $100 billion.

"It has been mind-blowing — beyond the imaginations of Ford, Carnegie, Morgan or even Rockefeller," he wrote. "Billions became the new millions."

• The Federal Reserve cut its benchmark interest rate to between 4.25% and 4.5% on Wednesday.
• The central bank also projected two cuts next year instead of four, sending stocks tumbling.
• Here's how analysts, economists, and other experts reacted to the Fed decision and market reaction.

The Federal Reserve cut its benchmark interest rate on Wednesday to a range of 4.25% to 4.5%, bringing its decline since mid-September to 100 basis points.

Wall Street usually celebrates rate cuts as lowering borrowing costs drives spending, investing, and hiring. Reducing rates also signals inflation is under control, and makes risk assets like stocks relatively more attractive by trimming yields on safer assets like Treasuries.

Yet stocks tanked because Fed officials projected two cuts next year, down from four previously. Fed Chair Jerome Powell also said the central bank expects to ease its monetary policy more slowly in the months ahead.

Here's a roundup of how analysts, economists, strategists, investors, and other experts reacted to the latest Fed decision in their morning research Thursday.

Matt Britzman, senior equity analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown

"US markets played the part of Scrooge on Wednesday, tumbling as the Federal Reserve's hawkish tone dampened holiday cheer.

Investors should see this as a healthy spot of profit-taking rather than an end to the party, after what's been a fantastic run for markets since the US election."

Russ Mould, investment director at AJ Bell

"Markets are normally good at reading the signs, but the sell-off on Wall Street last night would suggest investors had started on the Christmas sherry a bit early and were caught out by the Fed's announcement about where rates might go in 2025.

The 3% drop in the S&P 500 is a wake-up call that US markets are not a one-way ticket to the moon.

The fact futures prices are showing a rebound in the main US equities on Thursday would suggest we are not at the start of a full-blown market correction. Instead, it's more likely that investors are now sitting up and paying more attention to what could go wrong, rather than only focusing on the positives. That's long overdue and a healthy development."

David Rosenberg, founder and president of Rosenberg Research

"This is a Fed that really has no faith in its view at any time and is willingly reactive as opposed to proactive even though its actions affect the economy with long lags.

You would have thought that between the commentary and forecast changes that the world has changed dramatically since the jumbo rate cut just three months ago. It clearly does not take much to cause this Fed to swing its view around. I can guarantee that it will shift again."

Stephen Koopman, senior macro strategist at Rabobank

"'We had a year-end inflation forecast, and it's kind of fallen apart.'

Not exactly the confidence-inspiring line you'd expect from a Fed chair. But Jerome Powell's performance at yesterday's press conference wasn't his finest hour. In what might have been the most uncomfortable showing of his tenure, Powell ceded the stage to the hawks, visibly strained as he tried to sell a strategy he didn't fully appear to endorse.

Powell flagged inflation 'moving sideways' and 'higher uncertainty' around its trajectory. These admissions reveal a central bank increasingly unsure of its footing, with rates markets now expecting just one cut for 2025 (as we do), and with no real consensus on when that final cut would arrive."

Jamie Cox, managing partner for Harris Financial Group

"Markets have a really bad of habit of overreacting to Fed policy moves. The Fed didn't do or say anything that deviated from what the market expected — this seems more like, I'm leaving for Christmas break, so I'll sell and start up next year.

The good news is that this 10-day sell-off should lay the path for a Santa Rally leading into next week."

Chris Zaccarelli, chief investment officer for Northlight Asset Management

"Santa came early and dropped a 25-bps rate cut in the market's stocking but accompanied it with a note saying that there would be coal next year."

The market is forward-looking and ignored the good news of today's rate cut and instead focused on the paucity of rate cuts for next year."

Jochen Stanzl, chief market analyst at CMC Markets.

"What was heard last night from the Fed as an accompaniment to the interest rate cut is a showstopper for the stock market.

The Fed is sending a clear signal that it has almost completed the phase of interest rate cuts. The year 2025 will be a significant break in the Fed's rate-cutting cycle.

The Trump blessing could quickly turn into a curse. If the market expects yields to rise further, it is unlikely that the Fed will intervene against these forces. If inflation data continues to rise in January and February, then that could be it for the interest rate cuts."

Adam Turnquist, chief technical strategist for LPL Financial

"While the Fed is taking all the heat for today's sell-off, a reality check from overbought conditions, deteriorating market breadth, and rising rates was arguably overdue.

Overall, today's FOMC meeting brought back some unwanted clouds of uncertainty over monetary policy next year. At a minimum, market expectations have shifted toward a shallower- and slower-than-anticipated rate-cutting cycle. Technically, the near-term risk remains to the upside for 10-year Treasury yields, creating a likely headwind for stocks."

Jean Boivin, head of the BlackRock Investment Institute

"The Fed has poured cold water on already dwindling market hopes for generous rate cuts in 2025.

Given the risk of resurging inflation from potential trade tariffs and a slowdown in immigration that has been cooling pressure in the labor market, market expectations of only two more cuts in 2025 now seem reasonable.

We expected this policy outcome, so it doesn't change our recently upgraded view on US equities. US stocks can still benefit from AI and other mega forces, from robust economic growth and from broad earnings growth — and we see them outperforming international peers in 2025."

Isaac Stell, investment manager at Wealth Club

"With an economy that's going gangbusters and an incoming president with a fiscally loose agenda, you wonder why the Fed felt it necessary to cut.

Is this to curry favor with the incoming administration or is there a bump in the road the Fed can see that the rest of us are missing."

Michael Brown, senior research strategist at Pepperstone

"The FOMC delivered about as hawkish a cut as they could muster up yesterday, and market participants were not particularly pleased about what they heard.

It was, though, a little perplexing to see such a violent market reaction to Powell's remarks, particularly considering how 'every man and his dog' had been expecting this sort of a pivot in the run up to the meeting.

It feels, though, as if markets have overreacted to Powell's message, and that we may have reached something of a hawkish extreme here

Consequently, I'd be a dip buyer of equities here, as strong earnings and economic growth should see the path of least resistance continuing to lead to the upside, offsetting the fading impact of the 'Fed Put.'"