Warren Buffett claims US stock market volatility is ‘really nothing’ — says Berkshire Hathaway has crashed 50% many times. How to be greedy when Americans are fearful (and vice versa)

“What's happened in the last 30, 45 days, 100 days, whatever you want to call it, it's really nothing,” he said.

Here’s why the world’s most famous investor isn’t unnerved by recent swings in the stock market and why he believes we could see a “hair-curler” in the future.

Berkshire has lost 50% of its value before

While headlines might convince some investors the markets are ablaze, for Buffett it’s just a minor bump in the road. After all, the Oracle has been actively investing in stocks since the age of 11 in 1941, and has much more historical context than the average novice investor.

Over the course of his career, Buffett said he’s seen his company, Berkshire Hathaway, lose roughly half its value on at least three separate occasions.

For context, he’s lived through the Second World War, the Black Monday stock crash of 1987, the Dot-Com bust in 2001, the Great Financial Crisis of 2008, and the recent pandemic.

After roughly eight decades of picking stocks amidst these swings, nothing fazes him anymore. “However many years I've been old enough to trade stocks — 17 or 18,000 days — there's been plenty of periods that… just are dramatically different [from] this,” he quipped.

However, the Oracle insists young investors with limited experience should adopt a similar approach. “If it makes a difference to you whether your stocks are down 15% or not, you need to get a somewhat different investment philosophy,” he recommended.

“The world will not adapt to you, you have to adapt to the world. You will certainly see a period in the next 20 years that will be a hair-curler compared to what you've seen before. The world makes big, big mistakes sometimes.”