At a regular Berkshire meeting, Warren Buffett made an unpopular warning, which those present in the room did not approve of, and which, in particular, boiled down to the fact that one cannot expect too much in the long term. The fact is that at certain periods in recent U.S. history, when the value of the U.S. economy rose in 2, 3 and even 5 times, there was no change in the stock market, and all because it was initially too overvalued, writes Yahoo.

Buffett pointed to the market’s almost exorbitant performance in recent years and urged investors to be cautious. In this regard, it is worth remembering a similar call for caution he made in late 1999. The infamous collapse of the dot-com bubble, which led to a 75% drop in the Nasdaq stock market and the loss of such well-known companies as Apple and Amazon of more than 80% of their market capitalization. Then the downturn also hit Microsoft, whose stock plummeted 34% and it took them 14 years to get back to 1999 levels. And Intel was only able to make up 24% over the next 17 years.

It’s worth remembering that almost 2 years ago, Charlie Munger, Buffett’s partner at Berkshire Hathaway, also warned of a dangerous market mania, saying that investors were “very close to playing with fire.”

The facts prove Buffett and Munger right: over the past year, the S&P 500 has fallen more than 22%, ending a historic 14-year bull market. During steep drops like those experienced by Big Tech stocks in 2000 and 2001, giants like Tesla, Apple, Amazon and Meta Platforms* lost trillions of dollars in market value combined. But we can also point to a 23% drop in funding for startups over the same period: clearly, there has been a turning point in the market.

Investors are shaken after nearly a year of market decline. And it brings to mind some more of Buffett’s wise words: be greedy when others are afraid. When you consider that Big Tech stocks, as the hardest hit during the last major sell-off in the sector, have recovered more than 2000% each in the ensuing years, the advice to investors looking to capitalize on a possible recovery is to take advantage of the easy access to start-up companies through crowdfunding. In particular, we can mention StartEngine, a crowdfunding giant that allows ordinary investors to bid for stakes in some of the most interesting, albeit risky, companies in the world.

* Meta is recognized in Russia as a terrorist organization and is banned