Build Your Own Warren Buffett Agent in 5 Minutes

What if you could ask Warren Buffett about a stock, market trends, or long-term investing, anytime you wanted? With reports suggesting he may soon step down as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, it’s a good moment to reflect on the lasting value of his principles. For decades, Buffett has been a steady voice in investing, known for his focus on value, patience, and understanding what you own. In this guide, I will show you how to turn those principles into a conversational Warren Buffett agent that evaluates companies through his lens, and interacts using real-time stock data and news. The goal isn’t to recreate Buffett, but to build a chatbot that helps you think the way he might.

Table of contents

• Project Goal and Architecture
• Step 1: Prepare Your Environment
• Step 2: Start the Script and Import Libraries
• Step 3: Set-up the Streamlit Interface
• Step 4: Define Core Settings and the Buffett Persona
• Step 5: Create Data Fetching Tools
• Step 6: Assemble the LangChain Agent
• Step 7: Implement the Chat Interaction Loop
• Step 8: Run the Warren Buffett Agent
• Analysing the Output
• Conclusion
• Frequently Asked Questions

Project Goal and Architecture

Our objective is clear: Create a Warren Buffett agent that interacts like him It should discuss investment philosophy, analyze stocks using his core principles, and leverage real-time data.

The main components are:

1. Language Model (OpenAI): Provides the conversational ability and persona adherence.
2. LangChain: Acts as the framework, connecting the language model, tools, and memory.
3. Stock Data API (Yahoo Finance): Fetches current stock prices and fundamental data.
4. News API (SerpAPI): Retrieves recent news headlines for context.
5. Streamlit: Builds the web-based chat interface for user interaction.

If this is your first time building agents, checkout our detailed guide – How to Build an AI Agent from Scratch?

Step 1: Prepare Your Environment

Before coding, ensure your computer is ready.

• Install Python: You need Python version 3.8 or newer.
• Get API Keys: Obtain an API key from OpenAI for language capabilities. Get another key from SerpAPI for news searches. Keep these keys secure.
• Install Libraries: Open your computer’s terminal or command prompt. Run the following command to install the necessary
• Python packages:

pip install langchain langchain-openai langchain-community openai yfinance google-search-results streamlit python-dotenv streamlit-chat

• Create .env File (Optional): In the directory where you will save your script, you can create a file named .env. Add your keys like this:

OPENAI_API_KEY="sk-YOUR_KEY_HERE"

SERPAPI_API_KEY="YOUR_KEY_HERE"

Step 2: Start the Script and Import Libraries

Create a new Python file (e.g., buffett_chatbot.py). Begin by importing the required modules at the top:

import streamlit as st

import os

import json

import yfinance as yf

from dotenv import load_dotenv

# LangChain components

from langchain_openai import ChatOpenAI

from langchain.agents import AgentExecutor, create_openai_functions_agent

from langchain.memory import ConversationBufferMemory

from langchain.prompts import ChatPromptTemplate, MessagesPlaceholder

from langchain_core.messages import SystemMessage # No need for HumanMessage/AIMessage here anymore

from langchain.tools import Tool

from langchain_community.utilities import SerpAPIWrapper

# --- Load .env file (as a fallback) ---

load_dotenv()

These imports bring in Streamlit for the interface, os for environment variables, json for data handling, yfinance for stocks, dotenv for key loading, and various LangChain components for the agent logic.

Step 3: Set-up the Streamlit Interface

Configure the basic application layout and create sidebar inputs for API keys:

# --- Page Config ---

st.set_page_config(page_title="Warren Buffett Bot", layout="wide")

st.title("Warren Buffett Investment Chatbot ?")

st.caption("Ask me about investing, stocks, or market wisdom - in the style of Warren Buffett.")

# --- API Key Input in Sidebar ---

st.sidebar.header("API Configuration")

# Initialize session state for keys if they don't exist

if 'openai_api_key' not in st.session_state:

   st.session_state.openai_api_key = ""

if 'serpapi_api_key' not in st.session_state:

   st.session_state.serpapi_api_key = ""

# Create text input fields for keys, storing values in session state

input_openai_key = st.sidebar.text_input(

   "OpenAI API Key", type="password", value=st.session_state.openai_api_key, key="openai_input"

)

input_serpapi_key = st.sidebar.text_input(

   "SerpAPI API Key", type="password", value=st.session_state.serpapi_key, key="serpapi_input"

)

# Update session state with current input values

st.session_state.openai_api_key = input_openai_key

st.session_state.serpapi_key = input_serpapi_key

# Determine which keys are active (user input takes priority)

active_openai_key = st.session_state.openai_api_key or os.getenv("OPENAI_API_KEY")

active_serpapi_key = st.session_state.serpapi_api_key or os.getenv("SERPAPI_API_KEY")

# --- Display API Status ---

st.sidebar.header("API Status")

# (Add the if/else blocks using st.sidebar.success/error/warning as in the provided code)

if active_openai_key: st.sidebar.success(...) else: st.sidebar.error(...)

# Check and display SerpAPI status similarly

This code sets up the visual part of the Streamlit chatbot application. It uses st.session_state to remember the API keys entered by the user during their session.

Step 4: Define Core Settings and the Buffett Persona

Establish constants for the AI model and define the detailed instructions (system prompt) that shape the chatbot’s personality:

# --- Constants & Prompt ---

MODEL_NAME = "gpt-4o" # Specify the OpenAI model

TEMPERATURE = 0.5     # Controls AI creativity (lower is more predictable)

MEMORY_KEY = "chat_history" # Key for storing conversation history

BUFFETT_SYSTEM_PROMPT = """

You are a conversational AI assistant modeled after Warren Buffett, the legendary value investor. Embody his persona accurately. 

**Your Core Principles:**

*   **Value Investing:** Focus on finding undervalued companies with solid fundamentals (earnings, low debt, strong management). Judge businesses, not stock tickers.

*   **Long-Term Horizon:** Think in terms of decades, not days or months. Discourage short-term speculation and market timing.

*   **Margin of Safety:** Only invest when the market price is significantly below your estimate of intrinsic value. Be conservative.

*   **Business Moats:** Favor companies with durable competitive advantages (strong brands, network effects, low-cost production, regulatory advantages).

*   **Understand the Business:** Only invest in companies you understand. "Risk comes from not knowing what you're doing."

*   **Management Quality:** Assess the integrity and competence of the company's leadership.

*   **Patience and Discipline:** Wait for the right opportunities ("fat pitches"). Avoid unnecessary activity. Be rational and unemotional.

*   **Circle of Competence:** Stick to industries and businesses you can reasonably understand. Acknowledge what you don't know.

**Your Communication Style:**

*   **Wise and Folksy:** Use simple language, analogies, and occasional humor, much like Buffett does in his letters and interviews.

*   **Patient and Calm:** Respond thoughtfully, avoiding hype or panic.

*   **Educational:** Explain your reasoning clearly, referencing your core principles.

*   **Prudent:** Be cautious about making specific buy/sell recommendations without thorough analysis based on your principles. Often, you might explain *how* you would analyze it rather than giving a direct 'yes' or 'no'.

*   **Quote Yourself:** Occasionally weave in famous Buffett quotes where appropriate (e.g., "Price is what you pay; value is what you get.", "Be fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful.").

*   **Acknowledge Limitations:** If asked about something outside your expertise (e.g., complex tech you wouldn't invest in, short-term trading), politely state it's not your area.

**Interaction Guidelines:**

*   When asked for stock recommendations, first use your tools to gather fundamental data (P/E, earnings, debt if possible) and recent news.

*   Analyze the gathered information through the lens of your core principles (moat, management, valuation, long-term prospects).

*   Explain your thought process clearly.

*   If a company seems to fit your criteria, express cautious optimism, emphasizing the need for further due diligence by the investor.

*   If a company doesn't fit (e.g., too speculative, high P/E without justification, outside circle of competence), explain why based on your principles.

*   If asked for general advice, draw upon your well-known philosophies.

*   Maintain conversational context using the provided chat history. Refer back to previous points if relevant.

Remember: You are simulating Warren Buffett. Your goal is to provide insights consistent with his philosophy and communication style, leveraging the tools for data when needed. Do not give definitive financial advice, but rather educate and explain the *Buffett way* of thinking about investments.

"""

Step 5: Create Data Fetching Tools

Implement the functions that allow the chatbot to get external stock and news data.

# --- Tool Definitions ---

# 1. Stock Data Tool (Yahoo Finance) - No changes needed here

@st.cache_data(show_spinner=False) # Add caching for yfinance calls

def get_stock_info(symbol: str) -> str:

   # ... (keep the existing get_stock_info function code) ...

   """

   Fetches key financial data for a given stock symbol using Yahoo Finance...

   """

   try:

       ticker = yf.Ticker(symbol)

       info = ticker.info

       if not info or info.get('regularMarketPrice') is None and info.get('currentPrice') is None and info.get('previousClose') is None:

           hist = ticker.history(period="5d")

           if hist.empty:

                return f"Error: Could not retrieve any data for symbol {symbol}."

           last_close = hist['Close'].iloc[-1] if not hist.empty else 'N/A'

           current_price = info.get("currentPrice") or info.get("regularMarketPrice") or last_close

       else:

           current_price = info.get("currentPrice") or info.get("regularMarketPrice") or info.get("previousClose", "N/A")

       data = {

           "symbol": symbol, "companyName": info.get("longName", "N/A"),

           "currentPrice": current_price, "peRatio": info.get("trailingPE") or info.get("forwardPE", "N/A"),

           "earningsPerShare": info.get("trailingEps", "N/A"), "marketCap": info.get("marketCap", "N/A"),

           "dividendYield": info.get("dividendYield", "N/A"), "priceToBook": info.get("priceToBook", "N/A"),

           "sector": info.get("sector", "N/A"), "industry": info.get("industry", "N/A"),

           "summary": info.get("longBusinessSummary", "N/A")[:500]   ("..." if len(info.get("longBusinessSummary", "")) > 500 else "")

       }

       if data["currentPrice"] == "N/A": return f"Error: Could not retrieve current price for {symbol}."

       return json.dumps(data)

   except Exception as e: return f"Error fetching data for {symbol} using yfinance: {str(e)}."

stock_data_tool = Tool(

   name="get_stock_financial_data",

   func=get_stock_info,

   description="Useful for fetching fundamental financial data for a specific stock symbol (ticker)..." # Keep description

)

# 2. News Search Tool (SerpAPI) - Now uses active_serpapi_key

def create_news_search_tool(api_key):

   if api_key:

       try:

           params = {"engine": "google_news", "gl": "us", "hl": "en", "num": 5}

           search_wrapper = SerpAPIWrapper(params=params, serpapi_api_key=api_key)

           # Test connectivity during creation (optional, can slow down startup)

           # search_wrapper.run("test query")

           return Tool(

               name="search_stock_news",

               func=search_wrapper.run,

               description="Useful for searching recent news articles about a specific company or stock symbol..." # Keep description

           )

       except Exception as e:

           print(f"SerpAPI Tool Creation Warning: {e}")

           # Fallback to a dummy tool if key is provided but invalid/error occurs

           return Tool(

               name="search_stock_news",

               func=lambda x: f"News search unavailable (SerpAPI key configured, but error occurred: {e}).",

               description="News search tool (currently unavailable due to configuration error)."

           )

   else:

       # Dummy tool if no key is available

       return Tool(

           name="search_stock_news",

           func=lambda x: "News search unavailable (SerpAPI key not provided).",

           description="News search tool (unavailable - API key needed)."

       )

news_search_tool = create_news_search_tool(active_serpapi_key)

tools = [stock_data_tool, news_search_tool]

These functions become the ‘senses’ of your stock data analysis bot, allowing it to access current information. Wrapping them as Tool objects makes them usable by LangChain.

Step 6: Assemble the LangChain Agent

Configure the core AI logic: the language model, the prompt structure, memory management, and the agent executor that ties them together. This happens within the main part of the script, often inside conditional checks.

# --- Main App Logic ---

# Check if the essential OpenAI key is provided

if not active_openai_key:

   st.warning("Please enter your OpenAI API Key in the sidebar...", icon="?")

   st.stop() # Stop if no key

# --- LangChain Agent Setup (conditional on key) ---

try:

   # Initialize the OpenAI LLM

   llm = ChatOpenAI(

       model=MODEL_NAME, temperature=TEMPERATURE, openai_api_key=active_openai_key

   )

   # Create the prompt template

   prompt_template = ChatPromptTemplate.from_messages(

       [

           SystemMessage(content=BUFFETT_SYSTEM_PROMPT),

           MessagesPlaceholder(variable_name=MEMORY_KEY),

           ("human", "{input}"),

           MessagesPlaceholder(variable_name="agent_scratchpad"),

       ]

   )

   # Initialize or re-initialize agent components in session state

   reinitialize_agent = False

   # (Add the logic to check if 'agent_executor' exists or if keys changed)

   # ...

   if reinitialize_agent:

       # Initialize memory

       st.session_state['memory'] = ConversationBufferMemory(memory_key=MEMORY_KEY, return_messages=True)

       # Create the agent

       agent = create_openai_functions_agent(llm, tools, prompt_template)

       # Create the executor

       st.session_state['agent_executor'] = AgentExecutor(

           agent=agent, tools=tools, memory=st.session_state['memory'], verbose=True, # Set verbose=False for production

           handle_parsing_errors=True, max_iterations=5

       )

       # Store keys used for this agent instance

       st.session_state.agent_openai_key = active_openai_key

       st.session_state.agent_serpapi_key = active_serpapi_key

       # st.experimental_rerun() # Rerun to apply changes

   # Continue with chat history initialization and display...

This is the core LangChain chatbot development section. It sets up the agent using the persona, tools, and memory, enabling intelligent conversation via OpenAI API integration. Using st.session_state here is essential for maintaining the agent’s memory across user interactions.

Step 7: Implement the Chat Interaction Loop

Add the code that handles displaying the conversation and processing user input through the agent.

# --- Chat History and Interaction ---

   # Initialize chat history if it doesn't exist

   if "messages" not in st.session_state:

       st.session_state["messages"] = [

           {"role": "assistant", "content": "Greetings! ..."} # Initial message

       ]

   # Display existing chat messages

   for msg in st.session_state.messages:

       st.chat_message(msg["role"]).write(msg["content"])

   # Get new user input

   if prompt := st.chat_input("Ask Buffett Bot..."):

       # Display user message

       st.session_state.messages.append({"role": "user", "content": prompt})

       st.chat_message("user").write(prompt)

       # Prepare input for the agent

       agent_input = {"input": prompt}

       # Invoke the agent executor

       try:

           with st.spinner("Buffett is pondering..."):

               # Get the executor instance from session state

               agent_executor_instance = st.session_state['agent_executor']

               response = agent_executor_instance.invoke(agent_input)

           # Display assistant response

           output = response.get('output', "Sorry, an error occurred.")

           st.session_state.messages.append({"role": "assistant", "content": output})

           st.chat_message("assistant").write(output)

       except Exception as e:

           # Handle errors during agent execution

           error_message = f"An error occurred: {str(e)}"

           st.error(error_message, icon="?")

           # Add error to chat display

           st.session_state.messages.append({"role": "assistant", "content": f"Sorry... {e}"})

           st.chat_message("assistant").write(f"Sorry... {e}")

   # Optional: Add the button to clear history

   if st.sidebar.button("Clear Chat History"):

       # (Code to clear st.session_state.messages and st.session_state.memory)

       st.rerun()

This part makes the Streamlit chatbot application interactive. It reads user input, sends it to the LangChain agent executor, and displays both the user’s query and the bot’s generated response.

Step 8: Run the Warren Buffett Agent

Save the complete Python script. Open your terminal in the script’s directory and run:

streamlit run buffett_chatbot.py

Run this file in the terminal and your browser will open the application, ready for you to input API keys and interact with the chatbot.

Analysing the Output

Let’s test Mr. Buffett agent with some of our questions. You can access the same here.

Our streamlit app looks like this, Here we have the option to fill our own OpenAI key and SerpAPI key. Now lets test the bot…

Question 1: “Mr. Buffett, could you explain your core investment philosophy in simple terms?”

Question 2: “Analyze Apple (AAPL) based on its current fundamentals. Would you consider it a good long-term investment based on your principles?”

Question 3: “What are your thoughts on Microsoft (MSFT) considering its recent news and developments?”

Based on the above outputs, we can see that the bot is performing well and using all its functionalities to get to the final output. It is using Warren Buffet persona that we defined earlier to answer all the questions. The bot is utilizing yfinance to get the latest stock prices and PE ratios. SerpAPI is used to get the latest news on the stocks.

Conclusion

This Warren Buffett agent can be a useful companion for anyone looking to explore value investing through the lens of timeless principles. Whether you’re just starting out or refining your approach, this agent can help you think more clearly and patiently about the markets, just like Buffett would.

You can try it live here: BuffettBot on Hugging Face.

Have a question you’d like the agent to answer? Drop it in the comments, I’d love to hear what you ask and how the agent responds.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q1. Where do I get OpenAI and SerpAPI keys?

OpenAI: Visit platform.openai.com, sign up, and navigate to the API keys section.
SerpAPI: Visit serpapi.com, register, and find your API key in your account dashboard.

Q2. Is the stock data always accurate?

A. The bot uses Yahoo Finance via yfinance. While generally reliable for widely traded stocks, data can have delays or occasional inaccuracies. It’s good for educational purposes but always cross-reference with official sources for actual investment decisions.

Q3. Can I customize the Buffett persona?

A. Absolutely. Modify the BUFFETT_SYSTEM_PROMPT string in the code. You can adjust his principles, communication style, or even add specific knowledge areas.

Q4. Why does the bot sometimes say the news search is unavailable?

A. This happens if you haven’t provided a valid SerpAPI key in the sidebar or the .env file, or if there was an error connecting to SerpAPI.

Q5. Can this bot give guaranteed investment advice?

A. No. This chatbot is an educational simulation based on Warren Buffett’s style and principles. It does not provide financial advice. Always consult with a qualified financial advisor before making investment decisions.

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