How Buffett Has Borrowed Heavily To Juice Berkshire’s Returns

Warren Buffett has always advised investors against borrowing money to buy stocks or, indeed, any other asset.

In 1991, during a question-and-answer session at Notre Dame, Buffett used Donald Trump's financial troubles (Trump's empire narrowly escaped collapse in the early 1990s after the property investor was able to extend the repayment schedule for his debt) to warn about the perils of leverage:

"I've seen more people fail because of liquor and leverage – leverage being borrowed money. Donald Trump failed because of leverage. He simply got infatuated with how much money he could borrow, and he did not give enough thought to how much money he could pay back."

This is a script Buffett has stuck to throughout his career. In 2018, in...