Warren Buffett Stocks: What’s Inside Berkshire Hathaway’s Portfolio?
You need to keep up on Warren Buffett stocks, because while the Berkshire Hathaway (BRKB) chief sticks to a winning investing formula, that doesn’t mean sitting still.
In the first quarter of 2022, Buffett’s Berkshire grew a stake in Chevron (CVX) by 316%, also buying a big stake in Occidental Petroleum (OXY) in a possible bet that oil prices will stay elevated.
Both Chevron and Occidental now rank among the conglomerate’s top 10 holdings by number of shares. And Berkshire continues to buy more OXY stock, adding nearly 10 million shares June 28-30, a new regulatory filing shows. Buffett now owns a 17.4% stake in the oil-and-gas explorer and producer.
In Q1, Berkshire also added to top holding Apple (AAPL), while purchasing Paramount Global (PARA) and HP (HPQ) for the first time, according to a 13F filing in May.
The small but growing Paramount+ streaming service is a rival to Netflix and Disney+.
Sold Drug Stocks But (Re)Bought Merck
While Berkshire was a net buyer of stocks in Q1, it sold several drug stocks. However, it opened a new position in Merck (MRK) in Q1, after selling the Keytruda cancer drug maker in Q3 2021.
Last quarter, Berkshire kept some of its biggest and longest-held positions steady. Those included Bank of America (BAC) and Kraft Heinz (KHC), as well as Coca-Cola (KO) and American Express (AXP), both of the latter holdings since 2001.
Warren Buffett stocks, such as Merck and Occidental Petroleum, can sometimes be found on the IBD 50 list of top growth stocks and IBD Leaderboard.
Top Warren Buffett Stocks By Size
At the end of March, these were the top 10 Warren Buffett stocks by number of shares:
- Bank of America (BAC), 1.01 billion shares
- Apple (AAPL), 890.9 million shares
- Coca-Cola (KO), 400 million shares
- Kraft Heinz (KHC), 325.6 million shares
- Occidental Petroleum (OXY), 226.1 million shares
- Chevron (CVX), 159.2 million shares
- American Express (AXP), 151.6 million shares
- U.S. Bancorp (USB), 126.4 million shares
- HP (HPQ), 121 million shares
- Nu Holdings (NU), 107.1 million shares
Berkshire Hathaway Investment Strategy
Buffett is known as a buy-and-hold investor, hanging on to stocks for years and even decades. But there has been major turnover lately.
In 2021, Berkshire Hathaway exited Biogen (BIIB), Merck (MRK), Teva Pharmaceuticals (TEVA) and Merck spinoff Organon (OGN), not long after buying stakes in those drug stocks. It dumped AbbVie (ABBV) and Bristol Myers Squibb (BMY) in Q1 2022, after buying them for the first time in Q3 2020.
In 2020, Berkshire bought, then quickly sold Pfizer (PFE) and Barrick Gold (GOLD). It also dumped Costco (COST), as well as all of its airlines stocks amid the coronavirus hit to global air travel.
That came after Berkshire ditched drywall maker USG (USG) in 2019, IBM (IBM) in 2018, and General Electric (GE) in 2017.
Top Buffett stocks tend to be dividend growers. Take Coca-Cola stock, which Buffett began gathering in 1987 and which has grown dividends for about 60 years in a row.
Between 1965 and 2021, the widely followed Berkshire Hathaway portfolio posted a 20.1% compound annual gain, nearly double that of the S&P 500 index, with dividends included.
Apple Stock Is No. 1 By Value
While Bank of America is the No. 1 Warren Buffett stock by number of shares, Apple is the No. 1 stock in Berkshire’s portfolio by market value, worth a whopping $155.56 billion at the end of March.
Apple stock makes up 42% of Berkshire’s total equity portfolio, up from 6% at the end of 2016. It accounts for a big chunk of the portfolio’s surge in value over that period.
The Oracle of Omaha is a major institutional owner of AAPL stock, which you could call the poster child for Warren Buffett stocks due to its strong earnings, returns and management.
Warren Buffett Investment Strategy
Investor’s Business Daily created a screen of stocks based on the Buffett investment strategy.
IBD generally uses a different stock-picking strategy than Warren Buffett does, but companies appearing on that Buffett screen can sometimes also be found on the IBD 50 list of top growth stocks.
