Warren Buffett cheered the ongoing market selloff in a CNBC interview on Monday, suggesting his Berkshire Hathaway conglomerate will benefit from lower stock prices due to Wuhan coronavirus.
“That’s good for us actually, we’re a net buyer of stocks over time,” the billionaire investor and Berkshire CEO said. “Just like being a net buyer of food – I expect to buy food the rest of my life and I hope that food goes down in price tomorrow.”
“Who wouldn’t rather buy at a lower price than a higher price?” Buffett continued. “People are really strange on that. They should want the stock market to go down, they should want to buy at a lower price.”
“They just feel better when stocks are going up,” he added.
Buffett made the comments following the release of his annual shareholder letter on Saturday, in which he said one of the criteria for Berkshire to make an acquisition is that it “must be available at a sensible price.”
The coronavirus – which causes a disease called COVID-19 – has infected more than 77,000 people, killed about 2,400, and spread to more than 25 countries. Stocks tumbled on Monday following deaths in Iran, Italy and South Korea in recent days, which fanned fears of a pandemic that could slow global economic growth.
This article originally appeared on Business Insider.
