Warren Buffett’s latest dealings included buying more Amazon stock, the online retail giant.
Billionaire investor Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway has added to his investment in Amazon, founded by Jeff Bezo.
Warren Buffett’s latest dealings revealed in Berkshire Hathaway second-quarter filings that the firm now owns 537,300 shares in Amazon. Berkshire Hathaway previously held 483,300 shares in Amazon.
Berkshire Hathaway now owns a stake in Amazon which is worth approximately $947 million, based on the company’s August 14 stock price.
“Berkshire Hathaway now owns a stake in Amazon which is worth approximately $947 million”
Warren Buffett’s latest dealings in Amazon comes as no surprise
The billionaire investor once described the online retail giant as a miracle. Warren Buffett a regretted publicly that he did not get in early. Warren Buffett said last year that he ‘blew it’ when it came to passing on an early investment in Amazon, which became one of the world’s leading companies.
In 1994, when Amazon was an IPO, he fobbed off the opportunity of investing early in the company thinking that an online bookstore could not work.
At the Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting earlier in 2018 Warren Buffett justified his reason to not invest in Amazon.
“The truth is that I’ve watched Amazon from the start and I think what Jeff Bezos has done is something close to a miracle, and the problem is if I think something is going to be a miracle I tend not to bet on it” said Warren Buffett in a meeting.
“I think what Jeff Bezos has done is something close to a miracle, and the problem is if I think something is going to be a miracle I tend not to bet on it”
WARREN BUFFETT
But Warren Buffett’s latest dealings confirms that the billionaire investor has had second thoughts about Amazon and is now heavily betting on the miracle. This is a classic case of watching what top players do rather than what they say.
“I’ve been a fan [of Amazon], and I’ve been an idiot for not buying” Warren Buffett said last year.
Warren Buffett explains Berkshire Hathaway’s purchase of Amazon stock which was done by one of his employees.
“I’ve been a fan [of Amazon], and I’ve been an idiot for not buying”
– Warren Buffett
Warren Buffett’s latest dealings in Amazon is in keeping with his classic investment style of a contrarian value investor
I am “Fearful when others are greedy and greedy when others are fearful” said Warren Buffett.
August 14 was the largest one day drop in stocks of the year with the Dow crashing 800 and Warren Buffett’s latest dealings revealed that the billionaire investor got greedy on Amazon.
Amazon Opens a New Window, the company said in SEC filings on August 14.
Some other of Warren Buffett’s latest dealings also include increasing Berkshire Hathaway’s holdings in bank stocks
While everyone frets about the inverted yields curve and recessionary fears Warren Buffett is taking the opportunity to load up on some beaten up bank stocks. The company increased its investments in the Bank of America and US Bancorp, according to Berkshire Hathaway’s latest SEC filings.
Back in June, the investment titan made a quick $12 billion on a sharp Bank of America trade, which entailed exercise warrants in the bank.
Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway exercise warrants in Bank of America back in June, which enabled it to acquire 700 million common shares at an exercise price of $7.14 each, or about $5 billion. At the closing price when the warrant was exercised Bank of America stock Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway stood to make a massive $12 billion profit on the deal. No, wonder Warren Buffet is smiling these days.
“back in June, the investment titan made a quick $12 billion on a sharp Bank of America trade, which entailed exercise warrants in the bank“
Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway stake is estimated to be worth approximately $17 billion, making Berkshire Hathaway the largest shareholder in Bank of America
Warren Buffett’s latest dealings in Bank of America underscores the fact that the seeds of big profits are often planted in a crisis. His dealings go back to Berkshire’s 2011 deal to invest $5 billion in preferred shares of Bank of America, which at the time was struggling with numerous legal issues in the wake of the subprime mortgage crisis. Warren Buffett never lets a crisis go to waste.
Warren Buffett’s latest dealings also include a significant bite out of Apple, the technology company
In the first quarter of 2018, Buffett’s Berkshire bought 75 million shares of Apple. That added to an existing 165.3 million shares Berkshire already owned at the end of 2017. Warren Buffett told CNBC at the time that he likes Apple, and “we buy them to hold.” “We bought about 5 percent of the company”.
Warren Buffett’s latest dealings in other technology stocks include ditching Oracle and buy the cloud computing firm Red Hat.
Red Hat is a major player in the “behind-the-scenes” construction of cloud services. It offers a rapidly growing range of tools that make it easy for companies to build and orchestrate cloud-like platforms in their own data centers, or manage applications that run on multiple different cloud computing services; crucial in an era of “hybrid cloud”.
