The S&P 500 has been hitting all-time highs this year. Retail traders are piling into Micron and the SpaceXIPO. One-day options trading is at record levels. Prediction markets like Kalshi and Polymarket are pulling in money alongside traditional stocks.
By almost every measure, people are enthusiastic about putting money to work right now.
Warren Buffett appeared on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” on July 15 and said he’s not finding much to buy. The 95-year-old Berkshire Executive Chairman has seen a lot of market cycles, and the one he’s watching now reminds him of something he’s been warning about for decades.
What Warren Buffett said about gambling and the stock market in 2026
“It’s tough to find values when everybody is preferring gambling,” Buffett said on CNBC.
He went further. “There are times when opportunities are just thrown at you so fast you can’t, you know, it’s unbelievable,” he said. “And then there’s other times when you’re very, very lucky if you find one thing in a couple of years. And it should always be that the latter is what prevails.”
And then: “Since humans love to gamble so much, there’s more money in actually cultivating gamblers than there are cultivating investors.”
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That last line is the one worth sitting with. Buffett isn’t just describing the behavior of retail traders. He’s describing the incentive structure that has grown up around it.
Brokerage apps, options platforms, prediction markets, leveraged ETFs — all of these businesses make more money when people trade more. They’re not in the business of creating long-term investors. They’re in the business of keeping people engaged, and engaged people trade.
Why Buffett called the stock market a church with a casino attached
This isn’t the first time Buffett has said something like this in 2026. At the Berkshire annual meeting in May, he described the market as “a church with a casino attached,” Fortune reported. He specifically pointed to the explosion in one-day options trading as the kind of activity that looks more like betting than investing.
His concern isn’t new, either. Buffett has been skeptical of short-term speculation since the 1960s. What he’s saying now is that the scale of it has reached something he hasn’t seen before. The volume of speculative activity is, in his words, “astonishing,” KuCoin noted.
Retail traders flooding into Micron. The SpaceX IPO drawing massive interest. Kalshi and Polymarket pulling in money alongside the stock market. Leveraged ETFs on single stocks. One-day options that expire the same day they’re bought.
Buffett sees all of this and says it makes his job harder, according to Axios.
Why Berkshire is sitting on nearly $400 billion in cash right now
Buffett’s comments are not just philosophy. They explain something concrete: why Berkshire Hathaway, under Executive Chairman Buffett and new CEO Greg Abel, is sitting on $397 billion in cash and short-term investments without deploying it aggressively.
When Buffett says it’s tough to find values, he’s telling you that he’s looked, and the prices he’s seeing don’t make sense to him. Berkshire underperformed the S&P 500 in 2025. The cash pile has kept growing, hitting a record $397 billion at the end of Q1 2026, according to Yahoo Finance. Some people read that as caution. Buffett reads it as discipline.
Abel net sold $8.1 billion of equity holdings in his first quarter as CEO, continuing the pattern of building cash rather than deploying it.
Buffett did reveal on July 15 that he personally initiated Berkshire’s investment in Alphabet, which the company first disclosed in Q3 2025 and has since expanded, including participating in a $10 billion private placement to fund Alphabet’s AI infrastructure. But that’s one position. The $397 billion cash pile says everything about how many others he’s found, according to CNBC.
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What Buffett’s gambling warning actually means for stock market investors
Buffett isn’t predicting a crash. He’s not saying the market is about to fall. He’s saying something more specific: When the market is driven by gambling rather than fundamentals, it becomes harder to know what anything is actually worth. Prices reflect sentiment, momentum, and FOMO more than they reflect business quality.
That’s frustrating for a value investor. And it’s been frustrating Buffett for a while. The S&P 500 has run to all-time highs on the back of AI enthusiasm and a strong earnings season, despite inflation and the economic uncertainty around the Iran conflict.
In that kind of environment, patient investing looks slow and boring compared to buying into whatever is moving.
But Buffett’s entire track record is built on exactly that kind of patience. His argument is that the gambling mentality eventually fades.
When it does, people who were buying businesses at sensible prices have an advantage over people who were chasing momentum. He’s been making that argument for 60 years. The current market just gives him another chance to make it again.
What Warren Buffett says investors should actually be doing right now
Buffett’s practical message is simple. If there’s nothing that looks like genuine value, don’t force it. Sit. Wait. Let the gambling crowd do what they do and be ready when prices get interesting again.
That’s easier said than done when the market keeps going up and everyone around you seems to be making money. Buffett acknowledges that.
He’s not saying the gamblers are wrong in the short run. He’s saying the long run belongs to the people who buy value and wait, and that the current environment doesn’t offer much of it.
Berkshire’s $397 billion cash pile is the most concrete expression of that view. Buffett could deploy it. He has the capital.
He’s choosing not to because the prices don’t justify it yet. When they do, he’ll move quickly.
Until then, he’s doing what he’s always done in environments like this: nothing.
Related: Warren Buffett doubles down on stock market message for 2026
