Buffett: I made a mistake not buying JPMorgan stock
Warren Buffett said that Berkshire Hathaway (BRK-A, BRK-B) made a “mistake” by not investing in JPMorgan Chase (JPM).
Buffett, 87, has publicly praised JPMorgan’s CEO Jamie Dimon. He’s also a fan of Dimon’s annual shareholder letter and often recommends that folks read it. That said, Berkshire Hathaway has never owned a share of the company.
“I should’ve [invested],” Buffett told Yahoo Finance editor-in-chief Andy Serwer in a wide-ranging interview in Omaha, Nebraska, recently. “Very obviously. I mean, it’s been a terrifically run operation. And it was very cheap, just like a number of others were.”
Berkshire Hathaway has put a large percentage of its capital in bank stocks over the years, including JPMorgan’s peers Wells Fargo (WFC), Bank of America (BAC), and Goldman Sachs (GS).
‘I made a mistake’
Buffett acknowledged that he owns some JPMorgan shares in his personal account. “I only have about five or six stocks. I have nothing, personally, to speak of in stocks,” he said. The majority of his net worth is in Berkshire Hathaway’s stock, and Buffett has “literally never sold a share.”
“We have had a pretty heavy weighting in banks right along. But I should have bought JPMorgan,” Buffett said. “I wish we bought a lot more. I made a mistake.”
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Julia La Roche is a finance reporter at Yahoo Finance. Follow her on Twitter.
