SILICON VALLEY: Billionaire Warren Buffett has said he would love to see Apple Inc. shares decline in price so he could buy more. He is getting his wish.
Apple’s warning on Wednesday about weak iPhone demand in the holiday quarter due to slower sales in China sent its stock down 7.5 percent during after-hours trading. Class B shares of Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. traded down 2 percent in the same session on Wall Street.
Buffett, the folksy Nebraska investor known more for buying railroads, energy firms and classic American corporate brands than for his acumen picking tech stocks, in recent years has lamented missing the boat on buying shares in US technology giants. He admitted an earlier investment in IBM Corp. was not one of his best.
Yet Buffett has made Apple a centerpiece of his portfolio of other company’s stocks, touting his own use of the Cupertino, California-based company’s products and saying at his annual shareholders’ meeting in Omaha last May, “We would love to see Apple go down in price,” so he could buy more at a bargain.
Buffett sees Apple more as a consumer stock than a tech stock, reflecting the iPhone’s status as a must-have possession for so many people.
Including its after-hours drop on Wednesday, Apple’s stock market value has tumbled to below $700 billion from over $1.1 trillion at its peak in October. Although Apple has fallen behind Amazon.com Inc. and Microsoft Corp. in value, it remains one of Wall Street’s most widely held companies.
Shares of Berkshire itself have held up well even as the broader market sank last quarter. Last year, Berkshire returned 2.8 percent, while the S&P 500 fell 4.4 percent, including reinvested dividends.
But the $3 billion hit to Berkshire’s Apple shares in evening trading on Wednesday could show in future reported earnings. Those figures do not reflect any long-term gains on Berkshire’s investments, and Buffett has encouraged investors to ignore the profit statistic mandated by US accounting practices.
For Warren Buffett, sinking Apple shares a wish come true
For Warren Buffett, sinking Apple shares a wish come true
- Apple’s warning on Wednesday about weak iPhone demand in the holiday quarter due to slower sales in China sent its stock down 7.5 percent during after-hours trading
- Apple’s stock market value has tumbled to below $700 billion from over $1.1 trillion at its peak in October
Lebanese social entrepreneur Omar Itani recognized by Schwab Foundation
- FabricAID co-founder among 21 global recipients recognized for social innovation
DAVOS: Lebanon’s Omar Itani is one of 21 recipients of the Social Entrepreneurs and Innovators of the Year Award by the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship.
Itani is the co-founder of social enterprise FabricAID, which aims to “eradicate symptoms of poverty” by collecting and sanitizing secondhand clothing before placing items in stores in “extremely marginalized areas,” he told Arab News on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
With prices ranging from $0.25 to $4, the goal is for people to have a “dignified shopping experience” at affordable prices, he added.
FabricAID operates a network of clothing collection bins across key locations in Lebanon and Jordan, allowing people to donate pre-loved items. The garments are cleaned and sorted before being sold through the organization’s stores, while items that cannot be resold due to damage or heavy wear are repurposed for other uses, including corporate merchandise.
Since its launch, FabricAID has sold more than 1 million items, reached 200,000 beneficiaries and is preparing to expand into the Egyptian market.
Amid uncertainty in the Middle East, Itani advised young entrepreneurs to reframe challenges as opportunities.
“In Lebanon and the Arab world, we complain a lot,” he said. Understandably so, as “there are a lot of issues” in the region, resulting in people feeling frustrated and wanting to move away. But, he added, “a good portion of the challenges” facing the Middle East are “great economic and commercial opportunities.”
Over the past year, social innovators raised a combined $970 million in funding and secured a further $89 million in non-cash contributions, according to the Schwab Foundation’s recent report, “Built to Last: Social Innovation in Transition.”
This is particularly significant in an environment of geopolitical uncertainty and at a time when 82 percent report being affected by shrinking resources, triggering delays in program rollout (70 percent) and disruptions to scaling plans (72 percent).
Francois Bonnici, director of the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship and a member of the World Economic Forum’s Executive Committee, said: “The next decade must move the models of social innovation decisively from the margins to the mainstream, transforming not only markets but mindsets.”
Award recipients take part in a structured three-year engagement with the Schwab Foundation, after which they join its global network as lifelong members. The program connects social entrepreneurs with international peers, collaborative initiatives, and capacity-building support aimed at strengthening and scaling their work.
