Warren Buffett turns cold on Snowflake as Berkshire Hathaway sheds $989 million stake in AI giant
Every quarter, investors eagerly await the quarterly filing from investment giant Berkshire Hathaway that offers up wisdom on how the “Oracle of Omaha” is viewing the stock market.
On Wednesday, Warren Buffett’s firm filed its latest holdings snapshot with the Securities and Exchange Commission, revealing a massive reduction in its Apple stake, along with a complete exit from its nearly $1 billion position in Snowflake, a cloud-based data company that has become one of the top publicly traded stocks for the red-hot AI sector.
As Berkshire Hathaway retreats to holding more cash and U.S. Treasurys amid an uncertain economy, the filing demonstrates that the world’s most famous stock picker may be cooling on the hype cycle around artificial intelligence.
A dusting of snow
Known for its commitment to “value investing,” or focusing on stocks that appear to be underestimated by the market, Berkshire Hathaway has nonetheless loaded up on tech stocks in recent years—a sector known more for its astronomic growth while also maintaining a healthy skepticism about sky-high prices. Buffett began loading up on Apple in 2016, with the iPhone producer representing 50% of Berkshire Hathaway’s portfolio by the end of 2023.
While Berkshire Hathaway continues to invest in other industries—including energy, with a growing stake in the oil company Occidental—Buffett has continued to invest in tech stocks, including Amazon and the domain-name platform Verisign. Perhaps its most attention-grabbing move, however, was acquiring a nearly $1 billion stake in Snowflake in the first quarter of 2024.
Opportunities for publicly traded stocks in the AI sector remain scarce, with options largely restricted to Nvidia and other members of the so-called Magnificent Seven—a cohort of the largest tech companies, including Microsoft and Alphabet—which have invested heavily in the emerging sector, along with more downstream companies such as utilities. Many of the pure AI firms, such as OpenAI, remain private companies.
Snowflake is a notable exception. Founded in 2012, the company offers data storage and processing services, which is a necessity for AI development. Snowflake went public in September 2020 with a market cap of over $33 billion and has become a proxy for many investors looking to gain exposure in AI.
Though Snowflake started the year strong, with its share price rising from around $190 to over $235 in February, it has since dropped to around $127. According to a May report from Morningstar, the company’s revenue growth is continuing ahead of expectations, though its expected margins are moving in the wrong direction. “There is still some risk from decelerating revenue growth,” wrote strategist Eric Compton, though he noted that Snowflake seems to have a head start on competitors in the AI sector.
Buffett seemed to share the bearish view, with Berkshire Hathaway shedding its entire position of around 6 million shares of Snowflake, according to Wednesday’s filing. The company also further trimmed its Apple holdings by about half, though the stock still remains its top holding and nearly a third of Berkshire Hathaway’s portfolio.
While Buffett did not detail his strategy on Snowflake at Berkshire Hathaway’s last shareholder meeting in May, he did reiterate that Treasury bills are the “safest investment there is.” Its holdings increased to nearly $235 billion, up 81% from the end of 2023, with Berkshire Hathaway now owning more short-term Treasuries than the Federal Reserve.
