Buffett: Millennials heeding his advice during stock-market sell-off

Berkshire
Hathaway chairman and CEO Warren Buffett enjoys an ice cream
treat from Dairy Queen before the Berkshire Hathaway annual
meeting in Omaha, Nebraska.
Reuters/Rick Wilking

• The US stock market has faced a heavy selling over the
  past few weeks amid fears surrounding rising interest
  rates and escalating trade tensions.
• Warren Buffett tells investors to buy, hold, and don’t
  watch too closely when the stock market sells off.
• 
  Investors on Robinhood, which is popular among
  younger traders, seem to be following Buffett’s advice as
  a
  
   majority of the most-popular
  stocks on the trading app have seen investor interest
  increase over the past three weeks.

The US stock market has faced a heavy selling during the month of
October amid fears over rising interest rates and
escalating trade tensions. At its lows, the S&P 500 had lost
7% this month, but it seems investors on the free-trading app
Robinhood are heeding the advice of the legendary
investor Warren Buffett, who always tells
investors to
keep clam and focus on the long term. 

“Don’t
watch the market closely,” Buffett told CNBC when asked about
advice for investors who were worried about their retirement
savings during a wild bout of market volatility back in
2016
.

“If they’re trying to buy and sell stocks, and worry when
they go down a little bit … and think they should maybe sell them
when they go up, they’re not going to have very good
results.”

And investors on Robinhood, a free-trading platform
popular among younger traders, seem to be heeding Buffett’s
buy-and-hold strategy during the recent market sell-off.

According to data tracked by Business Insider, a majority
of the most-popular stocks on Robinhood have seen the number
of investors increase over the past three weeks, with only
nine out of the 30 most-popular names losing holders on the app.

Two cannabis stocks,
Cronos Group and Canopy
Growth saw investors loading up on shares ahead of Canada
becoming the second country in the world to legalize
marijuana, 
with net investor additions at
25,654 (+19.6%) and 21,077 (+28%) respectively.

On the flip side, AMD
saw the biggest drop in the number of investors with a net of
13,677, or 8.1% investors, selling their holdings since
September 27 following word that rival
Intel could ramp up its chip production sooner than
expected.