By Nicole Friedman and Joshua Jamerson

Warren Buffett said his Berkshire Hathaway Inc. more than doubled its stake in Apple Inc. since the start of the new year, making the Silicon Valley giant one of Berkshire's biggest equity holdings.

The recent investment has brought Berkshire's position to about 133 million shares, the bulk of which was bought at Mr. Buffett's direction. Berkshire owned about 57 million shares at the end of 2016. Mr. Buffett made the comments Monday morning on CNBC.

The recent buying would bring the value of Berkshire's stake in Apple to roughly $18 billion.

The comments come after the billionaire investor released his widely read letter to Berkshire Hathaway shareholders on Saturday, in which he reasserted his belief in his own ability to pick winners and losers. Mr. Buffett has traditionally shied away from tech stocks, saying that he doesn't understand the business, but he says Apple is a consumer product that he understands.

"People have this incredible stickiness with the product," Mr. Buffett said of the iPhone. Mr. Buffett said while that doesn't mean Apple is shielded from disruption by new technology, "the continuity of the product is huge and the degree to which their lives center around it is huge. And that's a really nice franchise to have in a consumer product."

Apple shares rose 0.4% to $137.2 in premarket trading.

Speaking more broadly on the economy, Mr. Buffett said that the market does not appear to be in bubble territory and predicted that the economy will be better off four years from now. "Stocks actually are on the cheap side," he said.

He also offered up some political commentary, praising President Donald Trump's pick of Rex Tillerson for Secretary of State as "the kind of person I would choose." He said Mr. Trump's first term in office should be judged by his record on keeping the U.S. safe from weapons of mass destruction, economic growth and shrinking income inequality. Still, Mr. Buffett, who backed Democrat Hillary Clinton in 2016, said even if Mr. Trump succeeds on those fronts it is "unlikely" he would vote to re-elect Mr. Trump.

Write to Nicole Friedman at nicole.friedman@wsj.com and Joshua Jamerson at joshua.jamerson@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

February 27, 2017 08:29 ET (13:29 GMT)

Copyright (c) 2017 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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