Bottom Line Up Front: Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.B) (BRK.A) Chairman Warren Buffett has always insisted that political and economic forecasts are a waste of time for serious investors. Not because major events don’t matter, but because trying to predict them usually leads to costly mistakes. In his 1994 Berkshire Hathaway shareholder letter, he reminded shareholders that the world is full of “blockbuster” surprises, yet none of them invalidated Ben Graham’s core investing principles. In 2026, when investors hang on every macro headline like it’s a life-or-death signal, Buffett’s message is even more relevant: fear hurts the trend-chaser, but it helps the disciplined buyer.
The Details: Buffett doesn’t build his strategy around being right about the next election, the next recession, or the next geopolitical shock. He builds it around buying great businesses at sensible prices and holding them long enough for the business results to matter more than the headlines. That’s why, in 1994, he wrote that Berkshire would “continue to ignore political and economic forecasts, which are an expensive distraction for many investors and businessmen.”
To prove the point, Buffett listed the kinds of historic events that feel like they should have changed everything for investors. Over the prior 30 years, no one could have foreseen the huge expansion of the Vietnam War, wage and price controls, two oil shocks, the resignation of a president, the dissolution of the Soviet Union, a one-day 508-point drop in the Dow, or Treasury bill yields swinging between 2.8% and 17.4%. It was a reminder that even the most confident experts rarely predict the biggest events that end up shaping markets and economies.
But Buffett’s real message wasn’t that these events were irrelevant. It was that they didn’t change the timeless math of investing. As he put it, none of those “blockbuster events” made the slightest dent in Ben Graham’s investment principles, and they didn’t make it unsound to negotiate purchases of fine businesses at sensible prices. The world can change dramatically, but a great business with durable economics is still a great business, and a foolish price is still a foolish price.
Buffett then pointed out something most investors ignore: the cost of waiting. He asked readers to imagine what it would have cost Berkshire if fear of unknowns caused them to delay or alter the deployment of capital. That’s the hidden trap of macro forecasting. Even if you’re not actively trading, you can still lose by hesitating. You can miss the best opportunities simply because you needed the world to feel calm before you acted.
This is why Buffett admitted that Berkshire’s best purchases often came when macro apprehension was at its peak. When investors are scared, they don’t just sell the bad businesses. They sell the good ones, too. They don’t just reduce risk. They dump quality at a discount because fear makes people prioritize relief over logic. That’s when a patient buyer can step in and buy value that wasn’t available a year earlier.
That’s also why Buffett drew such a sharp line between two kinds of investors. “Fear is the foe of the faddist, but the friend of the fundamentalist,” he wrote. The faddist needs confidence, momentum, and a story that feels safe right now. The fundamentalist needs only the underlying business to remain strong and the price to be reasonable. Fear breaks one and empowers the other.
In 2026, this idea hits even harder because markets don’t just respond to events anymore; they respond to narratives about events, predictions about predictions, and nonstop commentary that makes every headline feel urgent. Buffett’s advice is the antidote. You don’t need to predict the next macro shock to build wealth. You need a process that survives shocks, and the discipline to buy great businesses when everyone else is too distracted, too emotional, or too afraid to do it.
On the date of publication, Caleb Naysmith did not have (either directly or indirectly) positions in any of the securities mentioned in this article. All information and data in this article is solely for informational purposes. For more information please view the Barchart Disclosure Policy here.
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