Warren Buffett hesitant on Apple, tech companies
Multi-billionaire investor Warren Buffett says he still has no plans to invest in technology companies, including Apple, preferring to stick with companies like Coca-Cola because it is "very easy for me to come to a conclusion as to what it will look like economically in five or 10 years, and it's not easy for me to come to a conclusion about Apple."
Buffett's latest comments came at the opening of a new cutting tools factory in Daegu, South Korea, in which his investment company Berkshire Hathaway Inc. has a share. Even though he's a long-time friend of Microsoft founder Bill Gates -- the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation receives around $1.5 billion a year from Buffett -- the 80-year-old investor has never been comfortable with technology companies.
He says that, although recent events in Japan mean that technology stocks are depressed and therefore a good buy at the moment, he's sticking with what he knows. In fact, it's only within about the past five years that Apple stocks have out-performed those of Coca-Cola. Hindsight shows that a switch to Apple from Coke five years ago would have made Buffett a much richer man, but with around $50 billion to his name, his foresight seems to work pretty well.
While Apple's stock has gone up like a rocket in the past five years, Coca-Cola's has remained fairly stable -- and in the previous five years, Apple's stock was in the doldrums in comparison, and Buffett's choice looked wise.
And now, it turns out, even Bill Gates is investing in Coca-Cola via its Mexican bottler Femsa.
[Via Electronista]
