Would he take credit for stock jump? Buffett says no

It’s not Trump, it’s America.

That’s the view of billionaire investor Warren Buffett, when asked whether Donald Trump deserves credit for surging stock prices after he was elected president in November.

“If I ever get elected president, I will never claim credit for anything the market does,” Buffett, 86, said in an interview that aired late Monday on “PBS NewsHour”. “Because I don’t want to be blamed when it goes the other direction.”

Buffett, who built Berkshire Hathaway Inc. into one of the world’s largest companies, has long sought to separate politics from investing. Even though he supported Democrat Hillary Clinton in the election, he repeatedly said the country’s economy would do fine no matter who won. Since Trump’s election, Buffett has reiterated his view that the U.S. has a system that has proven to generate prosperity.

“We will be the economic leader,” Buffett said in the interview. “And we should be the moral leader. We should stand for more than the fact that we’re the wealthiest country.”

Stocks surged after Trump’s election on optimism that his plans to cut taxes and increase infrastructure spending would spur economic growth, and markets continue to trade near record levels.

“The stock market has been going up basically since March of 2009,” Buffett said.