Warren Buffet holds 5.5% Stake in Apple which amounts to 157.8 Billion Dollars Approximately which forms 40% of Buffet’s portfolio (Source : Varinder Bansal’s Tweet)
Silly Comparsion but why not …Apple’s Market Cap = India’s GDP Currently (i know we are comparing Apples with oranges )
Would love to hear your views on this GIANTTTTT of a company .
As you pointed out Apple forms almost 40% of Berkshire’s investment.
But Berkshire still has another US$ 150 Billion in cash, in search of investment avenue. So effectively Berkshire has as much cash as their apple holding
My favourite thing about Apple is that it’s a beautiful hidden Monopoly. Calling a tech company no matter how large a “Monopoly” would seem silly on the face of it, but it actually is a Luxury Goods company walking around as a Tech company. How many Luxury Tech companies exist today ? Vertu and Blackberry tried it but folded very fast against Apple.
It Ruthlessly pulls the plug on its products : It doesn’t wait around cutting anything which is adding fat or taking its RAM unnecessarily. New Product arrives ? The previous one which was very good in its own right, gets thrown into the trash bin faster than one can eat an Apple. It took the concept Fail Fast, Fail often and ran with it.
It Guards its reputation very well : Although Apple tried taking a dig at things early on its Business life. It completely stopped doing it after the late 90s. It doesn’t take a dig at other companies, and doesn’t allow anyone to tamper with its reputation. Samsung tried making fun of Apple’s Ads , but copying it gave Apple even more publicity and status.
I would definitely not bet against giants like Google. (esp. when it comes to business model) It’s astonishing to see these FAAMG stocks growing like mid and small caps even now.
Only risk i see for these companies is govts breaking them up citing antitrust laws.
I believe that the internet as a whole has changed many company structures. Companies such as Google are destined to evolve over time. It is true that these companies will continue to achieve greater levels in the future.
Google services continue to be in high demand. Google Ads continues to generate the most of the company’s revenue.
If you look at the FAAMG’s performance over the last year. Alphabet seems to be doing well.
These companies are projected to become even bigger. But I also think that there is a good chance that some anti trust laws will be made when these become even bigger.
The old Antitrust regime is on its way out I think. Most Senators and Congressmen are heavily invested in these very companies, they won’t regulate against themselves. They do slap on the wrists from time to time in terms of penalties and fines, which these cash rich giant can easily shell out without breaking a sweat, to make it look like something is being done. Same thing was done for Wallstreet Banks for the entire 20th century.
High time Indian Companies got out of their shell and start competing globally in terms of products and services. For now only TCS has been able to do this. We need more global brands.
I don’t agree on Anti-trust part. In fact regulators are getting more stringent now and blocking lot of stuff which was earlier getting easily approved
In fact this is single biggest problem Facebook is facing now. Zuckerberg always used to buy his way out but now he is being stopped and Facebook is actually required to build stuff, where they are struggling.
Found this article explaining Facebook’s trouble with regulators. Might be interesting.
I personally am a long term dollar bear from 2020…Me thinks dollar should atleast lose 20-25% of value in next 4-5 years. I know its kind of outrageous but its a wild bet on my part.
I would gladly sit on the other side of this trade. People have been calling the top on USA the day it began, 450 years and it still towers over the rest of the world combined. It is the Rome of our times, what happens in US decides how the world will look like for years to come and until the innovation pool dries up, wealth will keep flowing there.
China being a far second does have a chance to do it, but it would want to artificially keep its currency devalued being a net exporter for as long as it can. Europe is a mess, India busy getting its fundamentals straight first. If there is a competition going on, the rest of the world surely didn’t get the memo.
Yeah thats an extremely balanced and pragmatic take.
As I said, My bet is extremely risky but its like that Ek ka duss lottery ticket. I just feel that with pandemic and the events that have happened afterwards, The Geopolitical dynamics are changing rapidly. With Crypto, Digital Currencies and other geopolitical factors in play - I’m expecting tremendous changes and I daresay, Rapid decline of Dollar in next half decade.
(Source : Varinder Bansal’s Tweet)
with oranges )
