Warren Buffet: Apple Should Buy Back Its Stock With Extra Cash

Speaking on CNBC's Squawk Box, Berkshire Hathaway's Warren Buffett says Apple should be buying back stock with its excess cash, reports FORTUNE.

Addressing David Einhorn's push to get Apple to issue preferred shares, Buffet says:

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"I would ignore him. I would run the business in such a manner as to create the most value over the next five to 10 years. You can't run a business to push the stock price up on a daily basis. Berkshire has gone down 50% four times in its history. When that happens, if you've got money you buy it. You just keep working on building the value.


"I heard from people each time [Berkshire shares went down], saying why don't you do this or that. Pay a dividend. I think Apple's done a good job of building value. They may have too much cash. Now one reason they have so much cash is two thirds of it has not yet been taxed.

"When Steve called me, I said, Is your stock cheap? He said, yes. I said, Do you have more cash than you need? He said, a little. [laughs] I said, then buy back your stock. He didn't. Now, when our stock went from $90,000 to $40,000 to $45,000, I wrote about, we wanted to buy the stock. We didn't quite manage to.

"But if you could buy dollar bills for 80 cents, it's a very good thing to do."
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