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3 Stocks Warren Buffett Wishes He Had Bought
By: Motley Fool | March 18, 2018

It would be fun to hear Warren Buffett, a noted ukulele player, strum and sing "My Way," the old standard recorded by Frank Sinatra and Elvis. The legendary investor has certainly done things his way -- and quite successfully. However, to paraphrase the song: Regrets, he's had a few.

Buffett has pointed out three of his regrets. At Berkshire Hathaway's (NYSE: BRK-A) (NYSE: BRK-B) annual shareholder meeting last year, he stated that he missed opportunities by not buying Google parent Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOG) (NASDAQ: GOOGL) and Amazon.com (NASDAQ: AMZN) years ago. And in an interview with Yahoo! Finance last week, Buffett admitted that he made a mistake by not investing in JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM).

Here's what Buffett said about these stocks he now wishes he had bought -- and whether they're smart picks for ordinary investors now.

Alphabet

In 2017, Buffett told Berkshire Hathaway shareholders that he should have bought Google (later to roll up to a new umbrella company, Alphabet) a long time ago. He knew that Berkshire's GEICO insurance business was paying $10 to $11 for each advertising click on the Google search engine.

Had Buffett bought shares of Google 10 years ago, he would now be sitting atop gains of well above 400%. By comparison, Berkshire Hathaway stock rose close to 140% during the same period.

Would Warren Buffett buy Alphabet now? He told CNBC in a May 2017 interview that "if forced to buy [Google parent Alphabet] or short it, I'd buy it." Of course, Buffett isn't under pressure to buy or short Alphabet stock. Berkshire still doesn't own shares of the technology giant.

There's no question that Alphabet meets several of the criteria that Buffett prefers in a stock. The company has been managed really well. It enjoys a solid moat for most of its products. And Alphabet has consistently generated strong earnings.

The problem for Buffett with Alphabet now, though, is that he thinks it has too much technological uncertainty. Buffett hasn't jumped into tech stocks very often because he doesn't like to invest in businesses that he doesn't understand. . .

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https://finance.yahoo.com/news/3-stocks-warren-buffett-wishes-111700213.html

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