3. Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN)
YTD Share Price Performance as of November 26: 70.99%
Berkshire Hathaway’s Stake Value: $1,271,200,000
Warren Buffett added Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) to his portfolio in the first quarter of 2019. In the third quarter of 2023, Buffett held 10 million shares of Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) worth $1.27 billion, representing 0.4% of the total portfolio. It is one of the best performing Warren Buffett stocks in 2023.
On November 16, Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) reported a 100% success rate for its Project Kuiper internet satellites during the first test mission, called “Protoflight.” Launched in October, the two satellites, KuiperSat-1 and KuiperSat-2, were sent into space aboard an Atlas V rocket and are operating as intended. Project Kuiper’s goal is to enhance global broadband access using a constellation of 3,236 satellites in low Earth orbit.
According to Insider Monkey’s third quarter database, 286 hedge funds were long Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN), compared to 278 funds in the prior quarter. Ken Fisher’s Fisher Asset Management is the largest stakeholder of the company, with 41.35 million shares worth $5.25 billion.
Here is what Polen Global Growth has to say about Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) in its Q3 2023 investor letter:
“Amazon continues to showcase its place as one of the most competitively advantaged companies in the world. The company has made significant progress in managing costs and better leveraging existing capacity, driving a strong recovery in its profitability. We think there’s additional room for improvement.
AWS growth seems to be stabilizing even while management continues to work with clients to optimize their infrastructure spend. Roughly 90% of global IT spending remains on premise. We believe this will eventually flip, with most IT spending ultimately moving to the cloud over time. We think AWS will be a significant beneficiary of this transition.
Further, our investment case on company profitability driven by AWS and advertising continues to unfold, delivering nearly $8 billion in free cash flow over the trailing twelve months and a net margin of 5%. We expect both to move higher with the mix shift of more profitable businesses growing fastest continuing to take effect.
At Amazon’s current price, we believe the company is well positioned to deliver a mid-teens or higher total shareholder return for our clients over the next five plus years without a Herculean effort from the business. It simply needs to continue executing on current businesses and growing into the capacity it built during and immediately after the pandemic.”
