Warren Buffett has a $80 billion headache when stocks and businesses are this expensive. Here's a look at the investor's big dilemma — and the unhappy compromise he's made. Summary List Placement Warren Buffett has an unusual problem. His wallet is stuffed full of cash, but he's struggling to spend it wisely in one of the most expensive markets in history . The famed investor's Berkshire Hathaway conglomerate had over $140 billion in cash and short-term investments at the end of March. Buffett said he was looking to spend more than half of that figure at Berkshire's recent shareholder meeting . Yet Buffett and his team have sold $18 billion of stock on a net basis over the last nine quarters, excluding their $10 billion purchase of preferred stock in Occidental Petroleum to finance its merger with Anadarko Petroleum in 2019. Moreover, Berkshire has only spent $4.3 billion on acquisitions since the start of 2019, and most of that went towards buying Dominion Energy's natural-gas assets last summer. Buffett appeared to rule out an " elephant-sized acquisition " anytime soon at Berkshire's recent meeting, blaming a horde of competitors that are willing to pay more. "It is fair to conclude that Warren, Ted, and Todd have struggled for quite a while to identify attractive opportunities in the public markets," James Shanahan, a senior equity analyst at Edward Jones, told Insider.