'How Dumb Was I?': Legendary Investor Peter Lynch Missed Out On Apple, Nvidia — Is Crypto His Next Mistake?

Legendary investor Peter Lynch made stock-picking sound simple Tuesday morning on CNBC's "Squawk Box," but even he admitted that he has missed out on some obvious buys over the years. 

"When companies go from crappy to semi-crappy, the stock goes up. When it goes from semi-crappy to good, they go up, but when business gets to be terrific, get out," he said. 

What To Know: The vice chairman of Fidelity Management & Research averaged nearly a 30% annual return over his time as manager of the Magellan Fund. 

"You have to look at companies that other people aren't looking at," Lynch told CNBC. 

There were also some companies that he didn't look at close enough. He suggested that one of his biggest mistakes was overlooking Apple Inc AAPL.

He noted that Warren Buffett was able to see the explosive growth opportunity in Apple, but he missed out even though he saw his daughter spending $250 on an iPod and figured the Cupertino-based company probably had great margins on the music device. 

Lynch said he knew Apple had a clean balance sheet and he regrets not doing more homework on the name.

"Apple was not that hard to understand. I mean, how dumb was I?"

Check This Out: If You Invested $1000 In Apple Stock When Steve Ballmer Criticized The $500 iPhone, Here's How Much You'd Have Now

Another name he missed out on was Nvidia Corp NVDA. It's been a "huge stock," Lynch said: "I wish I coulda pronounced it."

He also can't figure out how to pronounce crypto, he said with a laugh. Lynch noted that he has "no idea" what to make of Bitcoin BTC/USD.

He said he does understand the underlying framework of blockchain and he even noted that he's aware a halving is on the horizon. But he doesn't own any Bitcoin or Ethereum ETH/USD, he said. 

AAPL, NVDA Price Action: Apple shares are up more than 26% year-to-date. Nvidia is up more than 80% since the start of the year.

Apple was down 0.25% at $164.91 and Nvidia was down 1.92% at $265.25 at the time of writing, according to Benzinga Pro.

Read Next: Analyst Questions Nvidia's Valuation After Company Earned Less Than 20% Of Meta's Profits In 2022

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