Warren Buffett: The financial panic is over (Reuters)

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Warren Buffett, perhaps the world's most admired investor, said on Thursday the financial panic that gripped the globe last year is a thing of the past, even as the U.S.

Warren Buffett, perhaps the world's most admired investor, said Thursday the financial panic that gripped the globe last year is a thing of the past, even as the U.S. economy's struggles persist.

The Nasdaq is back at all-time highs.  After closing at 5,048 back in March 2000, the Nasdaq took more than 15 years to close above that level, closing at 5,056 on Thursday to make a new record closing high. During the day on Thursday, the S&P 500 also breached an intraday record high. 

Warren Buffett’s massive stake in Suncor Energy Inc. could spark investor interest in the battered stocks of Canadian oil sands’ companies, according to analysts. Mr. Buffett had acquired 17.7 million shares of Suncor by June 30, according to a U.S. regulatory filing by his company Berkshire Hathaway Inc.

By Tom Metcalf Warren Buffett had $1.4 billion wiped from his fortune Tuesday after Wells Fargo & Co. fell 3.3 per cent as the fallout continued from revelations that bank employees had opened more than 2 million accounts without clients' approval. Berkshire Hathaway Inc., the lender's biggest shareholder, fell 2 per cent, causing the 86-year-old's fortune to drop more than anyone else's on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. The US investor is the world's fourth-richest person with a net worth of $65.8 billion.

Warren Buffett, the billionaire investor who oversees stakes in some of the largest U.S. banks, said the nation’s lenders have rebuilt capital to the point where they no longer pose a threat to the economy. “The banks will not get this country in trouble, I guarantee it,” Buffett, chairman and chief executive officer of Omaha, Nebraska-based Berkshire Hathaway Inc., said in a phone interview last week. “The capital ratios are huge, the excesses on the asset side have been largely cleared out.”

By Bottom Up Investments: Thursday, we wrote an article suggesting investors purchase Bank of America because, among other reasons, Warren Buffett had agreed to invest in the Company. Most of the pushback we received centered on the fact that Buffett was seemingly raking BAC over the coals on the deal.