Warren Buffett was born in 1930, and he bought his first stock at age 11. By 1965, he was running his own investment company called Berkshire Hathaway, which he still leads today.
Buffett has steered Berkshire to a total return of 4,384,748% over the last 58 years, which would have been enough to turn a $1,000 investment into more than $43.8 million. The same investment in the S&P 500 index over the same period would be worth just $312,230.
Berkshire’s incredible run of success stems from a simple strategy. Buffett likes to own companies with steady growth, sound profitability, and strong management teams. He especially likes companies returning money to shareholders through dividends and stock buybacks. One thing he has never done is chase the latest stock market trend, whether it be the internet, cloud computing, or now, artificial intelligence (AI).
With that said, many of the stocks owned by Berkshire have turned their attention to the AI revolution. Two of them account for a combined 40.2% of the conglomerate’s $362 billion portfolio of publicly traded stocks and securities today.
Image source: The Motley Fool.
1. Amazon: 0.5% of Berkshire Hathaway’s portfolio
E-commerce was Amazon‘s (NASDAQ: AMZN) primary business when it was founded in 1994, but the company has since expanded into cloud computing, streaming, digital advertising, and AI. Berkshire didn’t buy Amazon stock until 2019, and Buffett has often expressed regret for not recognizing the opportunity sooner. Today, Amazon’s $1.9 trillion valuation makes it the world’s fifth-largest company.
Amazon Web Services (AWS) is the largest provider of cloud services by revenue globally. It offers hundreds of solutions to help businesses thrive in the digital age, and it has also become a distribution platform for many of Amazon’s AI initiatives. CEO Andy Jassy wants to dominate the three core layers of AI: infrastructure (chips and data centers), large language models (LLMs), and customer-facing AI applications.
Like most cloud providers, AWS offers customers infrastructure powered by Nvidia‘s industry-leading…
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