저자: 미상 · 외국인
요약 보기
워런 버핏의 400억 달러대 현금성 자산은 실제로는 단기 미국채 중심이며, 금리 3.6% 수준에서 연 약 113억 달러의 이자를 받는 합리적 투자다. 버핏의 전략은 금리·인플레이션에 따라 성숙 기업과 성장 기업 가치가 바뀌는 구조를 따른다. 현재 버핏은 성숙 기업 위주 포트폴리오를 유지하며, 애플 매도 후에도 일부를 보유하고 구글을 새로 매수했다. 그의 다음 행보는 경기침체·인플레 하락·금리 인하를 기다리는 것으로, 이 시점에 국채를 팔고 애플·아마존·구글 등 기술주를 매수할 가능성이 제시된다. 다만 이란과의 전쟁으로 재정지출과 에너지 가격 상승이 이어져 금리가 내려오기 어렵다는 진단이다.
다듬은 글
If the US dollar is collapsing, why Warren Buffett is sitting on 400 billion dollars worth of cash? Warren Buffett is by far one of the greatest investors of all time, and by far the richest investor. So, if the dollar was collapsing, he would not be sitting on so much cash. He would be investing all of that money.
So, is there something that Warren Buffett knows that the rest of us don't? Well, the reality is that Warren Buffett is not sitting on so much cash. If you pull out his portfolio, you will see that the total amount of cash that Warren Buffett has is about 60 or 58 billion dollars to be more precise.
And if you compare that to the total market cap of Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway, which stands at 1 trillion dollars, that's about 6%. And it makes sense, because if you're an investing firm, you always need to have some cash so that you can actually invest should an opportunity strike. And Warren Buffett also has a lot of insurance.
So, if you have an insurance business, you always need a certain amount of cash at your disposal, because that's how the insurance business actually works. The vast majority of Warren Buffett's portfolio currently is at US Treasuries. That's literally half of his entire portfolio at 314 billion dollars worth of cash.
Basically, Warren Buffett, instead of investing in stocks, he's investing in the US Treasuries by loaning that money to the US government. And why would he do that? Because the US government has been paying very generous interest rates over the last few years. Warren Buffett is managing a huge portfolio.
Like, he's managing hundreds of billions of dollars, and the total market cap is over a trillion dollars. So, he needs to think in terms of risk and reward. When there is a super safe investment, when you can loan that money to the US government, and then the US government will tax Americans, and will take taxpayers money and will pay interest to Warren Buffett because Warren Buffett is very smart with his investments.
Currently, the US government is paying about 3.6% in yields. That means that Warren Buffett this year, assuming that yields are going to be at about 3.6%, will receive about 11.3 billion dollars worth of cash. When you're buying a stock and the price of the stock has risen, yes, you made money, but until you sell these stocks, you haven't actually realized your gains.
But with these investments, Warren Buffett is literally receiving pure cash from the US government and that is over 11 billion dollars. And over the last couple of years, interest rates have been high and Warren Buffett made so much money. Last year, for example, he held 350 billion dollars of US Treasuries and earned from the US government 15.5 billion dollars in pure cash directly.
In 2024, that was 13 billion dollars. In 2023, that was 9 billion dollars. Prior to that, he hasn't actually made much money from the US government because the yields on the US government back in the days were very low. Go back to 2020 and 2022. Yields were extremely low. So, if you're Warren Buffett and you cannot possibly make any money from the US Treasuries, why invest in the US Treasuries?
But then suddenly, when the Federal Reserve hikes interest rates and now the US government is paying 5.5%, why invest in any stock when you can actually take that money and just give it to the US government and just chill and relax while the US government is sending you dozens of billions of dollars right into your bank account.
And this is why Warren Buffett is sitting on so much cash. It is not just cash, but rather it is cash equivalent. And short-term US Treasuries are almost as much as cash because on one side you're receiving interest from the US government, on the other side you can easily sell them. So, if Warren Buffett wants for example to turn it into a cash, he can literally turn it within a week.
The yields on US short-term Treasuries has certainly fallen to 3.6% but still at 3.6% he's still making over $11 billion. So, this investment still makes sense. Warren Buffett has actually sold the vast majority of his portfolio when it comes to Apple stock, 75% and he started at the end of 2023. In 2024 he slashed his shares in Bank of America by 50%.
So, what exactly Warren Buffett is doing? What exactly is Warren Buffett's strategy? You see, Warren Buffett is a very conservative investor and his strategy is very simple. His strategy is a cyclical strategy because the valuations of businesses change based on different circumstances of the market, you can easily predict what Warren Buffett is going to invest next.
He's not actually coming out with them secret strategy that nobody knows. The reason that Warren Buffett is so insanely successful because his investing strategy is very simple and he is very consistent and he has been consistent with this strategy for so many decades that it made him the world's wealthiest investor of all time.
This is how it works. When you look at the stock market, you see companies, you see businesses and there are different kind of businesses depends on which stage they are. On one side you have matured businesses. So, these are the businesses that that they have built themselves and they're making a lot of cash today.
So, take an example of Coca-Cola. Everybody around the globe knows Coca-Cola. Everybody drinks Coca-Cola. Not everybody but a lot of people drink Coca-Cola. And assuming that Coca-Cola is going to revolutionize something in the future is insane. No, they have already revolutionized the soft drinks and if everybody knows Coca-Cola.
So, they have a sustainable business model where they make dozens of billions of dollars annually by selling Coca-Cola. And nobody assumes that 5 years from now Coca-Cola is going to integrate AI into Coca-Cola and when you drink your Coca-Cola, you become a robot and you will become a superhuman. Nobody expects that of course, right?
So, it's a very mature solid business that you know how much money they make. Secondly, you have growth businesses. So, these are the businesses that primarily promise to make a lot of money in the future. So, this business basically tells you that, "Listen, we don't make a lot of money today, right?
Every single penny that we earn from revenue is being invested back into the business. Why? Because we assume that our technology will be earning a lot of money in the future. So, we might be making a lot of money, but how much do we make for our investors? $0. But, if you stick with our strategy, we will be making $10 trillion 10 years from now.
Why? Because we will integrate AI into this software or into this piece of hardware and the rest of the world will be using this AI and we will basically dominate the world. But, there is one problem. This $10 trillion, you might not actually earn it. In fact, if you earn it for example 20 years later, there is one question.
What will be the true value of this $10 trillion? Ask yourself a very simple question. Remember 20 years ago, if you had $100 in your pocket, that was a lot of money. Just think about how many things you could buy in a grocery store with $100. Today, you go to a grocery store with $100, you can barely buy anything.
And that is why 20 years from now that $10 trillion is going to worth a lot less. So basically, the way we value businesses is by looking what is the value of cash. And the value of cash changes based on different factors such as interest rates, inflation, and many other factors. If inflation is going to start rising dramatically, then the value of this $10 trillion will become a lot less valuable.
If inflation is going to go down, then the value of this $10 trillion on paper is suddenly going to become much more valuable. So the valuation of the business that is going to make that $10 trillion either will rise when inflation is going to go down, or the valuation of that business that will generate $10 trillion will go down if inflation is going to rise.
The same thing happens with interest rates. If interest rates are rising today, that means that the opportunity cost just became a lot more expensive. So this business that is selling Coca-Cola today, for example, is only going to earn $10 billion. Now what is the value of this $10 billion? If interest rates are going to rise, then interest rates or the yields on the US Treasuries will rise, and I can invest this $10 billion in the US Treasuries and make a lot more money.
So just because the interest rates have risen today, it is going to make the value of Coca-Cola or a matured business much more valuable and value of a business that promises to make a lot of money in the future a lot less valuable. So at the end of the day, everything comes back to the value of the cash.
That will determine the value of businesses. So between 2020 and 2021, there was very low inflation and very low interest rates. And that means that suddenly if you have a lot of cash today, yes, there is not much inflation, but at the same time the opportunity cost is very slim because interest rates are insanely low.
And that means at the same time that if you have the company that promises to make that $10 trillion in the future because of AI or some kind of technology, that means that the value of that $10 trillion just became a lot higher because inflation today became a lot lower. That's why if you look at tech stocks in 2020 and 2021, they have been growing insanely high.
Suddenly, in 2022, what happens? There is high inflation and there is high interest rates. What that does to the value of that future $10 trillion? First of all, high inflation means that on paper that $10 trillion became a lot less valuable. But also, because interest rates are now higher, the opportunity cost has become a lot more expensive, which means that the value of that $10 trillion became a lot less valuable and the value of the cash today became more valuable.
So, if you have a solid business that is a mature business that makes a lot of cash today, their valuation instantly rises. Do you see that the logic is very, very simple? And now let's look at Warren Buffett's portfolio. Since interest rates since 2022 has been insanely high and they haven't gone down to actually 2% and inflation also haven't gone down to 2% you will see that the entire portfolio of Warren Buffett consists of mature businesses.
Look, American Express is a very mature business. There is absolutely nothing new about it. They have their products, they have their client base, and they have a very systematic business and they make a lot of money. Bank of America, the same thing. Coca-Cola is a very stable business. It has been around since God knows how many years.
It seems like Coca-Cola has been around for as long as America has been around. Chevron, also it's an oil business. Moody's, Occidental Petroleum, Chubb, Kraft. The entire portfolio basically consists of mature businesses. Why? Because Warren Buffett knows that high interest rates and high inflation is going to make the companies that promise to make a lot of money in the future, aka technology companies, aka AI companies, a lot less valuable.
The only two tech companies that Warren Buffett has is Apple and Google. Both of them are semi-mature businesses. That means that they're already very mature businesses, but they also have the opportunity or the potential to make a lot more money because they're perfectly positioned to capitalize on AI, which is why, yes, he sold a big portion of his Apple portfolio, but at the same time he kept 25% because he knows that there is still a potential in that.
And secondly, he just started investing in Google recently. This is not an investment that he kept. He basically started right now because he saw that opportunity in Google right now. So, when you understand how the market works, that the entire market basically works on the valuation of cash based on today and future, you understand Warren Buffett's portfolio.
So, here's the most important question. What is going to be Warren Buffett's next move? He's waiting for the bottom line. He's basically waiting for the recession. He wants inflation to go down to as low as 2%, and he wants the Federal Reserve to lower down interest rates. It doesn't mean that he wants, but rather he's waiting for that.
If that happens, then he's suddenly going to get rid of all the US Treasuries because receiving 2% or 2.5% yields on the US Treasuries makes not much sense when you can actually receive much more by investing in the stock market. But for that to happen, the government needs to stabilize spending. Then inflation is going to reach 2%, and the yields might go down to as low as 2.5%.
Currently, the US government started a war with Iran, which means that there is going to be massive spending by the US government, which means that there is a good potential that inflation will keep rising. Why? Energy prices are about to triple. That is going to lead to higher inflation. Not my words, but the words of the chairman of the Fed.
Lower rates and lower inflation will make tech companies more valuable. If that happens, then you will see him selling his treasury bills and buying probably more of Apple stocks, maybe Amazon stock, or maybe even more of Google stock. He has too much at stake and he can't actually take big risks. Warren Buffett is managing hundreds of billions of dollars and the market cap of Berkshire is over a trillion dollars.
So, he has to be very, very conservative. One wrong move and he might be losing a lot of money. So, there is a lot at stake, which is why Warren Buffett is very, very conservative. The moment you see that Warren Buffett is actually selling massively his US treasuries and starts buying stocks, especially tech stocks, that's the moment you know that the US government or the US economy is slowly getting out of a recession.
But based on what's happening right now, that doesn't seems to be happening anytime soon. Because as long as the war is going to continue, the yields on the US treasuries are not coming down anytime soon. If you want a step-by-step strategy on how to make your first million dollars in the stock market, then join the Investing Academy. The link is in the description of this video.
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