Warren Buffett is best known as a value-investing guru, but the fact that Apple is by far the largest stock holding in the Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A 0.47%) (BRK.B 0.80%) portfolio shows the famous investor doesn't maintain an overly strict dichotomy between "value stocks" and "growth stocks."
Intelligent, long-term investing decisions have helped the investing conglomerate deliver returns of more than 5,200% over the last 30 years and go up more than 2,600,000% since Buffett took over the company in 1965. With that incredible performance in mind, read on for a look at two tech stocks in the Berkshire Hathaway portfolio that have what it takes to be huge winners.
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1. Snowflake
Sporting a market capitalization of roughly $78.5 billion and trading at approximately 39 times this year's expected sales, Snowflake (SNOW -0.45%) has one of the more unusual valuation profiles in the Berkshire Hathaway portfolio. This is a growth stock through and through, and it's operating at the intersection of some powerful long-term trends that help put its valuation and support from the Berkshire team in context.
Snowflake provides data warehousing and analytics services, and it allows users to easily combine otherwise siloed information from Amazon's, Microsoft's, and Alphabet's respective cloud platforms. It also allows customers to share and monetize their data, and the business is on track to benefit from a powerful network effect as more clients take advantage of these services.
A recent market study found that 100% of surveyed Snowflake customers recommend the company's services, and the data specialist's highly regarded offerings are paving the way for rapid business growth. Existing customers increased their spending a whopping 73% year over year in the third quarter, and the company also grew its total customer count to 5,416 -- up roughly 52% year over year. The combination of increased client spending and new customer additions allowed the company to post 110% year-over-year sales growth in Q3, and there's still huge room for expansion over the long term.
With Snowflake's share price now down roughly 27% from its high, investors have an opportunity to build discounted positions in a company that's on track to play an influential role in the ongoing data analytics revolution.
2. StoneCo
The last year has been tough for fintech stocks. It's also generally been challenging for companies that primarily operate in the Latin American market.As such, it's not shocking that StoneCo (STNE 2.57%) stock has struggled across the stretch, but the extent of the sell-offs has been staggering.
StoneCo is a leading provider of payment processing and other fintech services in Brazil.Berkshire Hathaway made a significant investment in the company when StoneCo had its initial public offering in 2018. The investment conglomerate started out owning a roughly 11% stake in the company, but it trimmed its position after shares went on to post explosive gains. Berkshire's decision to reduce holdings in StoneCo stock has proven to be a wise one given recent trading, but there's big comeback potential here.
Amid waning investor appetite for risk, high inflation, and economic uncertainty in Latin America, StoneCo stock has gotten pummeled. Shares trade down a staggering 85% from the lifetime high they hit last February.
StoneCo's outlook has been dampened due to new credit regulations in Brazil that have disrupted one of the company's growth vehicles. On the other hand, the fintech actually posted a record net customer addition of 294,000 new merchant clients in the third quarter, and it also added more than 420,000 new digital banking accounts in the period.
The company ended the quarter with nearly 1.4 million active payment clients, and total revenue climbed roughly 57% year over year in the period. Meanwhile, total payment volume conducted through StoneCo's platform was up roughly 54% after backing out contributions from pandemic-related stimulus initiatives. The company's net income also slumped roughly 54% in the period, largely due to the collapse of its credit business, but there's still a core growth engine here that looks pretty strong.
The big sell-offs have pushed StoneCo's market capitalization down to roughly $4 billion, and the company is now valued at roughly 30.5 times this year's expected earnings and 2.7 times expected sales.I believe this is a situation in which can benefit from being "greedy when others are fearful," as Buffett has famously said.
John Mackey, CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool’s board of directors. Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fool’s board of directors. Teresa Kersten, an employee of LinkedIn, a Microsoft subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool’s board of directors. Keith Noonan owns Stoneco LTD. The Motley Fool owns and recommends Alphabet (A shares), Amazon, Apple, Berkshire Hathaway (B shares), Microsoft, Snowflake Inc., and Stoneco LTD. The Motley Fool recommends Alphabet (C shares) and recommends the following options: long January 2023 $200 calls on Berkshire Hathaway (B shares), long March 2023 $120 calls on Apple, short January 2023 $200 puts on Berkshire Hathaway (B shares), short January 2023 $265 calls on Berkshire Hathaway (B shares), and short March 2023 $130 calls on Apple. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
