Buffett Passes on Google (GOOG), Apple (AAPL)
Billionaire Warren Buffett, who is well-known for his “no tech” investment philosophy, says he has no interest in buying shares of Google (GOOG) or Apple (AAPL).Responding to a question about tech giants at Berkshire’s annual shareholder meeting in Omaha, Nebraska Buffett said:
“I would not be at all surprised to see them [Goggle, Apple] be worth a lot more money 10 years from now… but I would not buy either one of them. I sure as hell wouldn’t short them either.”
Buffett says he considers both companies to be “too risky.” That risk assessment however, is not, according to him, based on the co.’s fundamentals, but on the fact that it’s too hard to estimate what they might be worth. Buffett says it’s difficult to determine their value and how they will fare in the future.
IBM (IBM) — in which Buffett has accumulated a 5.5% stake, or 57 million shares ; making him one of the largest investors in the tech giant — by comparison, is easier to figure out and Buffett said he’d be more comfortable investing in the Armonk, New York-based company.
“The chance of being way wrong about IBM are probably less, at least for us, than being way wrong in Apple or Google,” he said. “I just don’t know how to value them.”
Buffett told CNBC on Friday that he wouldn’t buy shares in Facebook’s upcoming IPO: [BT] “I’m an agnostic on a company like Facebook. Anytime you get a truly extraordinary business — and it’s obvious it’s an extraordinary business — they’re the hardest ones to value,” Buffett said.
