71–80 of 190 posts
https://www.quiverquant.com/institutions/BERKSHIRE%20HATHAWA...
Berkshire also sold around $2.8B of Apple stock, although that was a much smaller move as a percentage of their position.
Warren Buffet retired. This is Berkshire Hathaway.
Amazon spent last year 100B in Capex. They announced they will spend 200B this year. These numbers are INSANE. Greater than GDPs of entire countries.
They literally don't have the cash to do it. Either they need to grow their cash flow significantly, or deplete their cash reserves or take a huge loan (likely a combination of them).
Jassy is playing Russian roulette with the company and his career.
Amazon's core business does not make sense. Despite being so massive, their retail operation makes almost no money. There is little market share left for them to win, the best they can do to grow is shave expenses. AWS has been their real money maker, but also the explosion of AI and server farms has worked against them in threes ways: there is much more competition on infrastructure, the costs to run infrastructure…
> There is little market share left for them to win, the best they can do to grow is shave expenses. I think Amazon netted something like $70 billion last year. What's the problem with them just staying the course and earning tens of billions of dollars in profit year-after-year-after-year?
Maybe the novelty of Amazon has worn off. I occasionally purchase from their UK site, and it’s filled with tricks to get me to sign up for Prime upon checkout. Really horrible workflow and design decisions, cheapening the experience. I now see similar changes to the US version: ‘you saved $15 in shipping by being a Prime member with this purchase’ and ‘last year you made 211 sustainable product purchases’. Guys, quit…
Example last purchase: An optical SPDIF/TOSLINK to 3.5 mm DAC box (5V/USB-powered) to put behind the TV with a broken/very low quality audio output. It was about $15 including 25% VAT. Probably like $5 on Aliexpress, but I didn't want to wait 6-8 weeks.
Never really buy anything for more than $50 from them though. And never anything containing Li-Ion batteries.
Here is a Berkshire Hathaway portfolio tracker if anyone is interested: https://www.quiverquant.com/institutions/BERKSHIRE%20HATHAWA... Berkshire also sold around $2.8B of Apple stock, although that was a much smaller move as a percentage of their position.
Maybe the novelty of Amazon has worn off. I occasionally purchase from their UK site, and it’s filled with tricks to get me to sign up for Prime upon checkout. Really horrible workflow and design decisions, cheapening the experience. I now see similar changes to the US version: ‘you saved $15 in shipping by being a Prime member with this purchase’ and ‘last year you made 211 sustainable product purchases’. Guys, quit…
Amazon's core business does not make sense. Despite being so massive, their retail operation makes almost no money. There is little market share left for them to win, the best they can do to grow is shave expenses. AWS has been their real money maker, but also the explosion of AI and server farms has worked against them in threes ways: there is much more competition on infrastructure, the costs to run infrastructure…
> There is little market share left for them to win Despite controlling about 40% of US online retail, Amazon only has about an 8% share of total US retail. There’s still plenty of room to grow here. https://www.emarketer.com/content/amazon-will-surpass-40-of-...
If there is something I might prefer to not wait on Amazon for, I will not find it at Walmart even if I remember Walmart once carrying that product. This is without fail. Each new (rare) trip to Walmart reinforces the lesson.
I have never been fond of Walmart's grocery department. I suspect (long ago) that they were able to sell produce 1 cent cheaper than anyone else by buying the least-wanted, unsold inventory from agricultural distributors, and the quality always reflected that theory. I could buy strawberries from Walmart, buy them again from the local grocery chain 10 minutes later, put them in the fridge simultaneously. And the Walmart-bought produce was slimy the next day, the grocery store produce not (unless I stacked the Walmart clamshell on the grocery store one... cross-contamination).
Worse still, they have reduced their personnel to skeleton crews, all shifts. The stores tend to look like they were looted after hurricanes. I do not know how anyone shops at Walmart, and it scares me that if my circumstances were less agreeable I might be forced to shop there too. Walmart might aim for stealing marketshare from Dollar General as a growth strategy, the overlap must be nearly absolute.
Maybe the novelty of Amazon has worn off. I occasionally purchase from their UK site, and it’s filled with tricks to get me to sign up for Prime upon checkout. Really horrible workflow and design decisions, cheapening the experience. I now see similar changes to the US version: ‘you saved $15 in shipping by being a Prime member with this purchase’ and ‘last year you made 211 sustainable product purchases’. Guys, quit…
1. I get very useful items at very good prices, many of which I would have to wander the city for hours to find, or couldnt find at all: - Eg: I got a pair of adjustable dumbbells at 2. Amazon Fresh is usually cheaper for groceries and maintain consistent quality compared to local supermarkets. I will also avoid the need to walk long with the grocery bag.
3. Electronics are significantly cheaper on amazon and again the need to search.
Maybe all of this can be even better as you said. But bottom line is that their operations look pretty efficient to me. Their catalogue is pretty much unmatched. (They may be losing money on retail business - but that's not my position to care as a customer. As other commenter pointed out, it may not even matter much for stock price.)