Invest your own money, let compound effect be your leverage, and avoid debt like the plague.
- Manlobbi
Investment Strategies / Mechanical Investing
No. of Recommendations: 2
Anyone have any ideas on why BRK might have sold down AMZN?
They bought it Q1 2019 for about $80-90/share.
4Qtr2025 they reduced from 10,000,000 shares to 2,276,000 shares at about $200-230/share. They may have liquidated further since then.
I would understand if they didn't like the CapEx spend but then they bought GOOG who is doing similar CapEx. Though maybe AI vs Robotics CapEx
Maybe rising gas prices hurt AMZN's last mile model more than rising gas prices hurt WMT and COST? But is AMZN really a retail play?
Maybe GOOG, MSFT, ORCL and others' cloud growth and competition?
AMZN 5 year return is pretty blah too. Is that about to change. I had been adding very small amounts over the last 6 months or so but Berkshire had me slow my roll.
Confirmation bias is no way to invest but I sure liked my AMZN position better when BRK held 10M shares.
No. of Recommendations: 4
As mentioned in another thread...
https://www.shrewdm.com/MB?pid=785363434...there is a possibility that a lot of the disposals, perhaps including this one, may have been related to the newish minimum tax rules. If they hadn't taxably realized enough profits they'd have had to pay tax on *unrealized* gains.
I don't know the new rules well, but I sure wish I knew if this was a material part of the reason. Maybe raising the huge cash pile shouldn't be interpreted as particularly bearish or safety-oriented move on the part of Mr Buffett. He's happy for the firm to pay tax, but he's also happy to arrange matters so the number isn't bigger than it has to be.
Jim
No. of Recommendations: 2
Thanks Jim. But why pick AMZN to sell? Gains are gains. He had lots of choices. One would think they would be selective in what to sell. $100 sale of AMZN did not have the same gains/taxes impact as $100 sale of KO so it wasn't particularly effective at getting to your hurdle while leaving more money invested.
I am guessing it has to be deeper than that don't you think?
Apple makes sense as it was an enormous position and of a size he might not want to expose Greg to. Maybe Greg just didn't understand it as well. Maybe Tod was the only one who felt good about it and he was leaving.
Bezos left. Competition is fierce. AI risk?
No. of Recommendations: 2
No. of Recommendations: 1
I thought it was sold simply because they wanted to get rid of all the "Todd Combs" trades. The other reason could be they feel Apple and Alphabet are the future in big tech .
No. of Recommendations: 7
Maybe Greg just didn't understand it as well. Maybe Tod was the only one who felt good about it and he was leaving.
...
I thought it was sold simply because they wanted to get rid of all the "Todd Combs" trades.
Those thoughts might have some merit. I was always struck by how all of the positions of Mr Simpson were blown out when he retired, despite his well known reputation and Mr Buffett's effusive praise on that front.
I don't think it's because there was anything wrong with the positions, nor any reason to believe that they weren't good holdings, nor a naive "not invented here" syndrome. Rather, if you're managing a portfolio, you just don't want positions in it that you yourself don't know to the depth necessary to allocate money to them. Which is a pretty high hurdle at head office.
As an aside...
It would be an interesting exercise to look at how all those positions did relative to the average S&P 500 firm in the 2-3-4 years after they were sold. I bet it wasn't bad.
l that being said, I *still* would like to know if the minimum tax rule was an impetus, or additional impetus, for the big string of liquidations. Has anyone tried the arithmetic to see whether Berkshire was facing a liability under that rule?
Jim
No. of Recommendations: 1
I thought it was sold simply because they wanted to get rid of all the "Todd Combs" trades. The other reason could be they feel Apple and Alphabet are the future in big tech .
Maybe that is where they are headed but they didn't sell out of ANYTHING yet. AMZN was the only holding that got reduced drastically as a large (77%) percentage. (BATRK was 48% too). Maybe HQ feels comfortable with most, but not all, Tod picks. Tod probably wasn't officially gone as of Dec 31, 2025 so maybe the next 13F-HR will reveal a lot more sales in 1Q2026.
No. of Recommendations: 0
Bezos left. Competition is fierce. AI risk?
AMZN has indicated a MASSIVE (with capital letter) infrastructure investment, and there is skepticism that they will generate a meaningful return off this. I expect until they show some positive indication the stock won't trade much higher than its current level, if the investments prove to be timely and at the appropriate scale the stock would have the potential to trade much higher, as always time will tell.
tecmo
(AMZN shareholder)
No. of Recommendations: 13
Sometime in the 90's I bought AMZN at 60 and sold it a bit later at 600. Could not imagine it could go any higher.
That was cumulative 240 split multiple ago.
$211.71 times 240 is {runs away sobbing}.
No. of Recommendations: 4
A proud owner of AMZN shares since 1997. Life changing. Yes, I'm boasting, since I've Never seen anyone in the investing world with the same ability. Maybe David Gardner still owns his '97 shares, but that would be it.
No. of Recommendations: 0
I've Never seen anyone in the investing world with the same ability. Maybe David Gardner still owns his '97 shares, but that would be it.
Possibly Bill Miller.
