I know most retail investors like to sell green to buy red, and then cry when the green keeps greening and the red keeps redding. I didn’t know even elite investors fall for it.
Bill Ackman on X: “To be clear, our sale of $GOOG was not a bet against the company. We are very bullish long term on Alphabet. But at current valuations and in light of our finite capital base, we used $GOOG as a source of funds for $MSFT”
My investing philosophy aligns with Berkshire's. I would rather double down on the winners I have high conviction in or just let them run.
Bill Ackman did not just trim his high conviction winner, he exited it completely to find a better risk/reward setup. What if $MSFT turns out to be a “value trap”?
He sold in Q1 when both $MSFT and $GOOG were crashing. He likely got a great entry price on $MSFT, but he also ended up missing most of $GOOG's massive melt up from its March lows. $MSFT is up ~18% from its March low of $356, while $GOOG is up ~43% from its March low of $273
bailing entirely on a high conviction winner during a steep crash looks an awful lot like panic sell than smart portfolio rebalancing
In Q1, Berkshire tripled their $GOOG position while Bill Ackman sold 95% to buy $MSFT despite being “very” bullish on GOOG long term. Why?
byu/mojolakota instocks
Posted by mojolakota
13 Comments
He thinks MSFT has more upside potential than GOOG. How does this deserve a post?
Should Ackman’s market moves even be in the same breath as Berkshires?
Berkshire buys with the intention to hold long term. That doesn’t always happen, but that’s how they pick stocks.
Ackman buys whatever he thinks will make money, he isn’t a multi-decade buy and hold investor. GOOG is up 140% in the last year while MSFT is down 7%. Perhaps he thinks this is a good short term move.
Ackman is a hack. If I was a name caller with a cult following like the President, he’d already be widely known as “Hackman”
Because If you exclude the profit on Spacex and Anthropic. Google is trading at a 40x forward PE while Microsoft is trading at a near 20 forward PE.
You take the absolute worst moment to have sold Google as an example while excluding the fact that he could have also sold in February when Google was at 345. You’re just cherry picking data to match your narrative.
I didn’t touch Microsoft one year ago due to its valuation. I bought heavily into Google. Now it’s exactly the opposite.
He wants the dividend next week
These are all major changes reported yesterday from major institutional fund managers;
* **Delta Air Lines (DAL):** Berkshire Hathaway made a massive return to airlines, dropping **$2.65B** to build a 39.8M share stake in Delta—reversing Buffett’s 2020 pandemic exit.
* **Alphabet (GOOGL):** Berkshire aggressively tripled its stake in Google’s parent company, adding **36.4M shares** to make it their 7th largest holding ($15.6B total). Bill Ackman aggressively gutted his existing Google position, cutting it down to just over 311k shares.
* **Microsoft (MSFT):** Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square bought the dip after MSFT’s early-year pullback, establishing a massive new **5.65M share** flagship position.
* **Amazon (AMZN) & Entertainment:** Berkshire completely exited its legacy positions in **Amazon** and trimmed down its consumer stakes to consolidate firepower.
* **Visa (V), Mastercard (MA), & UnitedHealth (UNH):** Berkshire liquidated its entire stake in these financial and healthcare giants, reducing its total stock count from 42 down to 29.
* **Chevron (CVX):** Berkshire took massive profits on energy, dumping roughly **$8 billion** worth of Chevron shares after it hit all-time highs in March.
Yes it’s true, I have used AI to make this list.
Saying msft is a value trap is hilarious
Before Buffet left his office, he stuck a sticky note on the chair that said: “*Long GOOGL you fool*”.
He also paper handed Netflix at a huge loss right before it ripped
Because people do what they do, dont overthink it
not sure i’d call a 95% exit panic just because GOOG ripped after. if my own 7% GOOGL slot needed to fund something with better risk/reward i’d still judge it on thesis/valuation, not the next 6 weeks of price action.
He’s an idiot – never forget