Warren Buffett's immunity to gold bug is baffling: SPDR official

Warren Buffett is a great investor, says Christopher Goolgasian, a portfolio manager at State Street Global Advisors Inc who helps oversee a $74-billion gold fund. The Oracle of Omaha just has it wrong when it comes to the metal.

"While he won't own gold, he also never owned Apple (up around 1,500% since January 2000) or Google (up 530% since August 2004)," Goolgasian said of Buffett in a March 2 regulatory filing for SPDR Gold Trust, an exchange-traded fund managed by State Street Corp .

In the filing, Goolgasian wrote that while Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway has risen 105% since January 2000, gold has climbed nearly five-fold during the same period.

Buffett, in his annual letter to shareholders last month, said investors should avoid gold because its uses are limited and it doesn't have the potential of farmland or companies to produce new wealth. Achieving a long-term gain on the metal requires an "expanding pool of buyers" who believe the group will increase further, he said.

"What motivates most gold purchasers is their belief that the ranks of the fearful will grow," Buffett wrote in the letter, posted on February 25 on the company's website.

In his letter, Buffett estimated the world's stock of gold if melded together would form a cube of about 68 feet per side and, when valued at $1,750 an ounce, amount to about $9.6 trillion.