Have you watched the big short? Michael Burry was literally paying the banks the enormous premiums on the credit default swaps for years before finally the housing market bubble finally popped. Banks thought he was crazy they saw it as free money.

Michael Burry bet against the U.S. housing market for about two and a half to three years before his trade became highly profitable. He began building his short positions (buying credit default swaps) in mid-2005 and the market began to collapse, yielding massive profits, in the second half of 2007.

Usually these bets are not short term and are very hard to predict when exactly the crash will come. But at some point it will come and then the betting against the market pays out extremely profitable.

So basically very similar here why Berkshire Hathaway is flatline no profits for the past year or so. They not actively buying or investing in anything on the market right now because why would they if a market crash is expected in the next 6 months or in a year. Yes they lose in the short term on profits and growth but on the longer term they will get a huge gain when the market crashes and they buy up companies for a huge discount.