It directs that my widow would have 90% of the funds in index funds. I think it's better advice than people are generally getting from people that are getting paid a lot to give other advice. You don't make a lot of money advising an S&P 500 index fund. If you say the day of investing in America is over, I would disagree quite violently. And then is there something special about index funds being a terrible way to invest? Very hard to have evidence of that. I mean, that the index funds reflect the market and one side has high fees that think they can pick out stocks and the other side has low fees. I know which side's going to win over time.
And I'm not recommending that people buy stocks today or tomorrow or next week or next month. I think it all depends on your circumstances, but you shouldn't buy stocks unless you expect, in my view, to hold them for a very extended period and you are prepared financially and psychologically to hold them the same way you would hold a farm and never look at a quote. You don't need to pay attention to them. And you're not going to pick the bottom and nobody else can pick it for you or anything of the sort. You've got to be prepared to, when you buy a stock, have it go down 50% or more and be comfortable with it. As long as you're comfortable with the holding, you should be in a position to hold. And I don't know whether today is a great day to buy stocks. I know it will work out over 20 or 30 years. I don't know whether it'll work out over 2 years at all.
Well, A, as I explained, the position isn't that huge when I look at worst-case possibilities. I would say that there are things that I think are quite improbable and I hope they don't happen, but that doesn't mean they won't happen. I mean, for example, in our insurance business, we could have the world's or the country's number one hurricane that it's ever had, but that doesn't preclude the fact we could have the biggest earthquake a month later. So, we don't prepare ourselves for a single problem, we prepare ourselves for problems that sometimes create their own momentum. I mean, 2008 and 9, you didn't see all the problems the first day when what really kicked it off was when Freddie and Fannie, the GSEs, went into conservatorship in early September. And then when money market funds broke the buck, I mean, there are things that trip other things. And we take very much a worst-case scenario into mind that probably is a considerably worse case than most people do. So, I don't look at it as huge.
And I'm not recommending that people buy stocks today or tomorrow or next week or next month. I think it all depends on your circumstances, but you shouldn't buy stocks unless you expect, in my view, you expect to hold them for a very extended period and you are prepared financially and psychologically to hold them the same way you would hold a farm and never look at a quote. You don't need to pay attention to them. And you're not going to pick the bottom, and nobody else can pick it for you or anything of the sort. You've got to be prepared when you buy a stock to have it go down 50% or more and be comfortable with it, as long as you're comfortable with the holding.
And I pointed out, I think a year, maybe 2 years ago in the annual report, I pointed out that there have been three times in Berkshire's history when the price of Berkshire stock went down 50%. Three different times. Now, if you held it on borrowed money, you could have been cleaned out. There wasn't anything wrong with Berkshire when those three times occurred, but if you're going to look at the price of the stock and think that you have to act because it's doing this or that, or somebody else tells you, well, I mean, you know, how can you stay with that when something else is going up or anything? You've got to be in the right psychological position. And frankly, some people are not really careful. Some people are more subject to fear than others. It's like the virus. It strikes some people with much greater ferocity than others. And fear is something I've really never felt financially, but I don't think Charlie's felt it either. Some people can handle it psychologically. If you can't handle it psychologically, then you really shouldn't own stocks because you're going to buy and sell them at the wrong time. And you should not count on somebody else telling you this. You should do something you understand yourself. If you don't understand it yourself, you're going to be affected by the next person you talk to. And you should be in a position to hold. And I don't know whether today is a great day to buy stocks. I know it will work out over 20 or 30 years. I don't know whether it'll work out over 2 years at all. I have no idea whether you'll be ahead or behind on a stock you buy on Monday morning or the market.
