• Steve Ballmer said his investment strategy is partly influenced by Warren Buffett.
• But Ballmer, whose net worth is larger than Buffett's, has an unconventional investment portfolio.
• More than 80% of Ballmer's portfolio is held in Microsoft stock, per The Wall Street Journal.

Steve Ballmer has an unorthodox investing approach.

The former Microsoft CEO is worth $151 billion, per the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, making him the ninth richest person the world.

That puts him ahead of famed investor Warren Buffett by a nearly $10 billion margin.

In an interview published Sunday, Ballmer told The Wall Street Journal that his investment strategy is partly influenced by Buffett, who has long said that since most people picking stocks cannot beat the returns of a general index fund. But there's one key difference.

The Journal reported that Ballmer keeps more than 80% of his portfolio in Microsoft stock. The rest is held in index funds. Ballmer declined to say how large his stake is in Microsoft.

"Microsoft's outperformed just about every other asset I could have owned," Ballmer told the Journal.

Ballmer's investment strategy goes against conventional wisdom, which suggests that people reduce their risk by diversifying their capital across different asset classes. And the world's wealthiest people typically go beyond stocks and bonds to invest in non-liquid assets like private equity and real estate. Ballmer said he is "mostly dialing out of private equity."

To be sure, Ballmer wasn't always going against the trend.

The 68-year-old tried diversifying in the past but said he struggled to find money managers who consistently beat the market.

"The only stock I really study still is Microsoft, because that's still overwhelmingly, overwhelmingly, overwhelmingly the No. 1 thing that I own," Balmer told the outlet.

Ballmer began his career at Microsoft in 1980 and succeeded founder Bill Gates as CEO in 2000.

According to regulatory filings, Ballmer held 333 million shares, or a 4% stake, in Microsoft when he stepped down as CEO in 2014.

Microsoft's shares are up 16.1% this year. The Seattle-based tech giant has been in front of the AI race with huge bets on startups like Sam Altman's OpenAI and France's Mistral AI.

In October, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said in an earnings call that the company's AI business is on track to top an annual revenue run rate of $10 billion next quarter.

This would make it the fastest business in Microsoft's history to reach that milestone, Nadella added.

Ballmer attributes his bumper gains in Microsoft's stock to luck.

"Forget the stock price. I had luck, essentially, in getting to listen to the right people," Ballmer told the Journal.

"But I also had luck in terms of my loyalty to the company and not wanting to be a seller as a leader of the business. It turned out to be a great investment thing, too," he added.

Ballmer did not respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

• Russia's central bank has kept the key interest rate at 21%, bucking expectations of a hike to 23%.
• Russia's top central banker said she is eyeing "excessive cooling" in the economy.
• Russia's high interest rates are impacting business investments and profits, business leaders complain.

Russia's economy has been running hot on wartime activities, prompting the country's central bank to hike rates up to 21% — but it's now worried about too much cooling.

Elvira Nabiullina, Russia's top central banker, expressed that concern on Friday when she kept the key interest rate unchanged. Analysts polled by Reuters had expected her to hike rates to 23%.

"Our politics is aimed at prevention of extreme scenarios, which means that we cannot let the economy overheat further," Nabiullina said at a press conference following the rates decision, according to TASS state news agency.

"It is necessary to make sure that overheating subsides. That said, it is necessary to avoid excessive cooling, which is why we keep a close eye on this," she said.

Nabiullina said the central bank kept the interest rate steady as monetary conditions have "tightened even more than was implied by the key rate increase" in October, when the bank raised the rate from 19% to 21%. Russia started the year with its benchmark interest rate at 16%.

"Consequently, lending growth notably slowed down in November," she said. "We will need some time to assess how steady this deceleration in lending is and how the economy is adjusting to the new conditions."

Russian business leaders complain about high interest rates

Nabiullina's comments came as Russia's inflation hovered around 8% in the year to November, compared to the target rate of about 4%. Staples, like the price of butter and potatoes, have shot up this year. But the central bank's three straight rate hikes since June may be working, the top central banker signaled.

"Tough monetary conditions have evolved in the economy, which are to provide for inflation slowdown in coming quarters," she said, per TASS.

Russian business leaders have been complaining about the central bank's high interest rates, which they say are stifling business activities.

Sergei Chemezov, the CEO of the defense conglomerate Rostec, said in October that record-high interest rates were "eating up" the profit from the company's orders.

"If we continue to work like this, then most of our enterprises will go bankrupt," Chemezov said.

Economic cracks in Russia

Even Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday acknowledged that his country's economy is not in a good place — and he blamed the central bank and federal government.

The Russian leader said that the central bank could have used instruments other than interest rates to cool the economy and that the federal government could have worked with economic stakeholders to improve supply.

"There are some issues here, namely inflation, a certain overheating of the economy, and the government and the central bank are already tasked with bringing the tempo down," Putin said during his marathon annual press conference.

Price rises had been an "unpleasant and bad" outcome, he said.

Given the sweeping sanctions against Russia's economy, Nabiullina faces a challenging job to keep Russia's seemingly resilient economy going.

Economic cracks are emerging as the Kremlin focuses on shoring up its defense industry for its war in Ukraine — but at the expense of other sectors, Alexandra Prokopenko, a fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center fellow wrote on Friday.

Prokopenko, a former Russian central bank official, wrote that growth momentum could stall next year, with social and fiscal challenges developing into crises around 2026.

• Apple is developing smart home locks with face recognition tech.
• This move aligns with Apple's growing interest in the home devices market.
• Apple's device would compete with Google's Nest and Amazon's Ring in home security.

Apple is reportedly working on bringing its facial recognition technology to home security.

The tech giant is developing a smart lock and doorbell that would allow residents to automatically open their home doors by scanning their faces, Bloomberg reported on Sunday.

The report said that Apple's doorbell system could work with existing third-party locks or the company could partner with one lock provider to sell a complete product. The technology is still in the early stages and could be released at the end of 2025 at the earliest, the report said.

Apple did not respond to a request for comment sent outside regular business hours.

The smart lock adds to Apple's growing interest in the home devices market. Last month, Bloomberg reported that Apple is working on an artificial intelligence-powered, wall-mounted tablet. The iPad-like device could be voice-operated, serve as an intercom, and control home appliances. Earlier this year, Bloomberg also reported that the company is working on building home robots.

Not all these developments may come to life. This year, Apple scrapped its car project and stopped efforts to develop a subscription model for the iPhone.

The door device could give the company an opportunity for more cross-selling with its other home products and its existing lineup of devices, like the iPhone and Apple Watch.

It could also allow the iPhone maker to compete with Google's Nest and Amazon's Ring. These devices have doorbells with a motion sensor that activates the camera and records a video of the surrounding area.

Such a product could draw the company into new debates about balancing users' privacy rights and working with law enforcement. Through emergency requests, police departments have received videos from Ring without receiving consent from the owner.

Apple and its CEO, Tim Cook, are known for prioritizing user privacy. In 2016, Cook refused to cooperate with the US government to unlock an iPhone used by a shooter in a mass shooting and attempted bombing in San Bernardino, California.

• China's internet isn't happy that "Wukong Sun: Black Legend" is due for release on Nintendo's store.
• It's a 2D platformer game with art and a title that resembles "Black Myth: Wukong."
• Immensely popular in China, the game has an ardent player base that is fiercely defending the title.

"Black Myth: Wukong," the high-profile video game that earned superstar status in China, has a new titular competitor on the market: a side-scrolling platformer in which the Monkey King bashes through monsters of ancient legend.

"Wukong Sun: Black Legend," published by Global Game Studio, is now listed for preorder on Nintendo's store for its Switch console — much to the chagrin of China's social media.

Posts deriding the Nintendo-listed game as a knock-off emerged on Monday morning and, within an hour, topped discussion rankings on Weibo, China's version of X, per data seen by Business Insider.

"Hey everyone, have you heard? The stunning 'Black Myth: Wukong' has actually been copied! This really makes you speechless," one user wrote.

"Since Nintendo has removed pirated games from its shelves, this should also be removed," wrote another.

Promotional art for the Nintendo-listed game, which is due for release on December 26 and retails at $7.99, bears a striking resemblance to that of "Black Myth: Wukong."

But the new title's gameplay looks nothing like that of "Black Myth: Wukong," a 3D action game with spruced-up visuals and a famed boss system that's difficult to overcome.

"Wukong Sun: Black Legend" appears to feature 2D sprites that approach from the right of the screen as the player navigates from the left.

"Black Myth: Wukong," produced by Chinese developer Game Science, is based on characters from the 1592 novel "Journey to the West," one of the most famous literary works in the region and a cornerstone of Chinese popular culture and mythology.

The term "Black Myth" in the game's title refers to it telling a story that is not included in the original novel, which has served as the base for a hit 1986 TV show and a plethora of books, games, and other media.

On its Nintendo store page, "Wukong Sun: Black Legend" also references the novel, saying it would allow players to "embark on an epic Journey to the West" and battle characters from its mythology.

Weibo users aren't having any of it.

"Well-known games have been plagued by imitations for a long time," wrote Pear Video, a popular internet news account. "Malicious developers exploit the names of well-known games, reskin various small games, and put them on the shelves of big game stores with similar titles, deceiving uninformed consumers to buy and download."

"I wonder how Nintendo will deal with it," a popular millennial gaming blogger wrote.

Nintendo operates a marketplace that allows developers to publish games for Nintendo consoles. The company did not respond to a request for comment sent outside regular business hours by BI.

Global Game Studio is listed as both the developer and publisher of "Wukong Sun: Black Legend." According to Nintendo's website the developer has also produced a soccer game, an extreme sports biking game, a "Farming Harvester Simulator," and a zombie shooter.

The studio did not respond to a request for comment in an email sent by BI.

"Black Myth: Wukong" is considered China's first homegrown AAA video game success, selling over 20 million copies on the marketplace Steam, per the data tracker Video Game Insights. The game retails at about $59.99 per copy, putting total sales north of $1 billion.

Its release dominated China's internet this summer and has garnered an ardent cult following. Earlier this month, the title's failure to clinch the coveted "Game of the Year" award from The Games Awards sparked a wave of dissatisfaction on Chinese social media.

NASA's Parker Solar Probe will make history during a flight around the Sun on Christmas Eve.

Why it matters: "No human-made object has ever passed this close to a star, so Parker will truly be returning data from uncharted territory," said Nick Pinkine, Parker Solar Probe mission operations manager at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (APL) in Maryland in a statement.

• The project aims to "answer longstanding questions about our universe," per a statement from Arik Posner, Parker Solar Probe program scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington, D.C.

The big picture: Parker became in 2018 the first spacecraft to enter the Sun's corona, the outermost part of the star's atmosphere that can be seen during a total solar eclipse.

• The probe aims to again "touch" the Sun when it flies up to about 430,000 mph at its closest approach "just 3.8 million miles" from the surface of the star at 6:53am on Tuesday ET, per NASA.
• Scientists have been using Parker to study the the heating of the solar corona and explore what accelerates the solar wind in the hope they can better predict dangerous space weather.

What we're watching: During its closest approach mission operations will be out of contact with the spacecraft, which NASA notes can travel in temperatures up to 2,500 degrees Fahrenheit.

• Parker is scheduled to transmit a beacon tone on Friday to confirm its health following the close flyby, according to the space agency.

Flashback: Parker Solar Probe breaks record for traveling closest to the sun

• Nissan and Honda are reportedly considering a merger.
• But former Nissan CEO Carlos Ghosn said the move suggests that Nissan is in "panic mode."
• "There is practically no complementarity between the two companies," Ghosn told Bloomberg on Friday.

The potential merger between Japanese automakers Nissan and Honda is a "desperate move," said Carlos Ghosn, Nissan's former CEO.

On Tuesday, Japanese newspaper Nikkei said the two companies are entering into merger negotiations.

Pooling their resources would allow Nissan and Honda to better compete against rivals in the electric vehicle space like Tesla and China's EV makers, the outlet reported.

Honda and Nissan are the second and third largest automakers in Japan, respectively. Their local rival, Toyota, is the world's biggest automaker.

A Nissan-Honda merger would result in the world's third-largest car company by volume.

Last week, Nissan and Honda told Business Insider that they are "considering various possibilities for future collaboration" but added that "no decisions have been made."

Ghosn said in an interview with Bloomberg on Friday that pursuing a merger with Honda suggests that Nissan is in "panic mode."

"It's not a pragmatic deal because frankly, the synergies between the two companies are difficult to find," Ghosn said.

"There is practically no complementarity between the two companies. They are on the same markets. They have the same products. The brands are very similar," he added.

Ghosn, Nissan, and Honda did not respond to requests for comment from BI.

Ghosn, once considered a legend in the auto industry, experienced a dramatic fall from grace in 2018.

The former CEO and chairman of the Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi alliance was arrested in Japan and charged with financial crimes in November 2018.

Ghosn was detained in a Japanese jail for over 100 days, before he fled the country by smuggling himself to Lebanon in a musical-instrument case in December 2019.

The disgraced auto chief has maintained his innocence. Last year, Ghosn filed a billion-dollar lawsuit against Nissan in Lebanon for damaging his finances and reputation.

On Friday, Ghosn told Bloomberg that the Japanese government — specifically Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade, and Industry — was likely behind the Nissan-Honda merger talks.

"So at the end of the day, they're trying to figure out something that could marry the short-term problems of Nissan and the long-term vision of Honda," Ghosn said.

The merger talks come at a precarious time for Nissan, which has been grappling with falling profits and decreased sales this year. Last month, Nissan cut 9,000 jobs globally in a bid to reduce costs. The company's stock is down 20.7% this year.

Nissan is also facing increased competition from Chinese EV makers like BYD, as automakers vie for market share in developing markets like Southeast Asia and Latin America. Data compiled by the technology firm ABI Research for BI showed that Chinese carmakers accounted for 70% of the EV market in Thailand and 88% in Brazil in the first quarter of this year.

Nissan initially led the EV race when it launched the world's first mass-market EV, the Leaf, in 2010.

But the Japanese car company's EV strategy has since floundered. Nissan is one of the few car manufacturers in the US without a hybrid or plug-in offering.

"Nissan finds itself now with a very poor lineup of products and without obvious leadership in EVs, and that's the direct result of poor management," Andy Palmer, the former chief operating officer of Nissan, told BI in November.

President-elect Trump floated taking ownership of Greenland as he named PayPal co-founder Ken Howery as his pick for U.S. ambassador to Denmark on Sunday.

The big picture: Trump said during his first administration that he was looking into the U.S. buying Greenland and canceled a state trip to Denmark after Danish officials said the autonomous territory that's part of its kingdom was not for sale.

• He made the comments after demanding earlier in the weekend that Panamanian authorities lower fees for U.S. ships to transit the Panama Canal or return its control to the United States.

Driving the news: "For purposes of National Security and Freedom throughout the World, the United States of America feels that the ownership and control of Greenland is an absolute necessity," Trump said in a post to Truth Social on Howery.

• "Ken will do a wonderful job in representing the interests of the United States."
• Representatives for Trump did not immediately respond to Axios' request for further details on the president-elect's plans for Greenland.

Background: The U.S. has on several occasions since 1867 considered or attempted to buy Greenland — the world's largest island that's not a continent.

• Greenland is part of the continent of North America, but it has close geopolitical ties to Europe and has received EU funding as it's classed as an overseas territory associated with the bloc via Denmark.

Between the lines: The territory has access to the Arctic, where there's been a race between nations for resources in the region that research shows is already feeling the impacts of climate change.

• Russia has in recent years sought to claim territory up to Greenland's Exclusive Economic Zone.
• Greenland's natural resources include gold, silver, copper and uranium and there's believed to be significant potential for oil in the waters off the territory.

Go deeper: The great game comes to Greenland

Editor's note: This article has been updated with new details throughout.