Most investors think Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway will outperform the S&P 500 in the next 5 years, survey says

• Most investors expect Berkshire Hathaway stock to outperform the S&P 500 over the next five years.
• That's according to a new Bloomberg MLIV Pulse survey of 352 professional and retail investors

More than half of investors expect shares of Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway to outperform the S&P 500 Index over the next five years.

A new Bloomberg MLIV Pulse survey with 352 respondents found that 53.2% of professional investors and 54.4% of retail investors think the stock will beat the broad market index in that span.

Meanwhile, 13% of professional investors and 8.1% of retail investors responded that Berkshire stock will lag the S&P 500 over the next five years, while 33.3% and 37.5% of each respective group said it will be close to the S&P 500.

Last year, shares Berkshire gained 3.3%, compared to the S&P 500's loss of 18%.

And with Wall Street anticipating a looming recession, the survey found that 44.6% of investors think now is the right time to buy defensive stocks, with 20.2% favoring growth stocks, 16.5% tech stocks, and 18.8% saying other.

Ahead of this week's annual Berkshire shareholder meeting, 80% of investors said the biggest portion of Buffett's legacy will be buying stocks for less than what they're worth. His annual shareholder letter came in second.

The Bloomberg survey comes as Buffett himself has been relatively quiet with Berkshire's investing portfolio in recent years.

While he boosted stakes in five top Japanese companies last month, his conglomerate is currently holding a massive pile of cash that totals roughly $130 billion as he has avoided megadeals even as last year's bear market lowered asset prices.

But Buffett has cautioned investors against deploying their money the same way he does. Instead, he has urged them to park money in a low-cost index fund.

He said the same to Tim Ferris in 2008 when the podcaster asked him how to invest $1 million.

"You will not get that advice from anybody because nobody gets paid to give you that advice," Buffett said. "You will have all kinds of people telling you how much better they can do for you than that, and how if you just give them a wrap fee, or give them commissions, or whatever it may be, that they will do better — but they won't do better."