Path to Domination
Berkshire Hathaway ($BRK.A, $BRK.B) is worth over half-a-trillion dollars and is synonymous with investor Warren Buffett and vice chairman Charlie Munger, but this week it was revealed that either Todd Combs or Ted Weschler made an important buying decision.
Since Buffett and Munger are 88 and 95, respectively, it is likely that the reigns of Berkshire will one day in the next decade move into the hands of either Gregory Abel or Ajit Jain, but Combs and Weschler each already manage over $13 billion of the company’s equities.
This week, it was announced that Berkshire [Combs or Weschler] finally bought shares of Amazon ($AMZN) stock:
Amazon has not been flying under the radar the past 20 years:
“Amazon was worth $18 billion at the time [2004]. Its online rival eBay, on the other hand, was an internet darling worth nearly $33 billion. If you were an outsider to both companies and you had to pick one as the future Everything Store, it might have been hard to imagine Amazon as the victor.
But 15 years later, Amazon is worth more than $900 billion, compared to just $33 billion for its old foe, eBay, which spun off its (more valuable) payment division, PayPal. And the Amazon Prime membership program is perhaps the biggest reason why.
The service, which launched in February of 2005, was a first of its kind: for an upfront payment of $79, customers were rewarded with all-you-can-eat two-day delivery on their orders. At the time, Amazon charged customers $9.48 for two-day delivery, meaning if you placed just nine of these orders in a year, Prime would pay for itself.
‘Even for people who can afford second-day shipping, this feels sort of like an indulgent luxury,’ Bezos said of Prime, on a call with Wall Street analysts when he introduced the service in February 2005.”
They say you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, but you can buy shares of a major tech stock for the said old dog(s) if you have permission.
What the Vox article above on Prime omits is Amazon’s ownership of Twitch, which has an important position in the gaming sector:
“If you like checking out new, creative indie games on PC — and especially like it when they’re free — then you’ll want to keep an eye Amazon Prime’s monthly game giveaways for Twitch Prime members. Last month, Twitch Prime members were able to claim four games — Her Story, Inner Space, Joggernauts, and Keep in Mind: Remastered — at no cost, and for May, Amazon is kicking up that number to five games.
…
You have through May 31 to download Twitch’s new freebies, and once you do, they’re yours to keep. To claim the free games and loot, you have to be an Amazon Prime member and make sure your Amazon account is linked to Twitch. After the free 30-day trial, an Amazon Prime membership costs $119 per year; if you’re a student, that price drops to $59 per year.”
And finally, next week is Uber’s long-awaited IPO:
So, fasten your proverbial seatbelts… 2019 is about to get bumpy.
