10 of Warren Buffett’s Favorite Stocks You Shouldn’t Ignore

Warren Buffett has been nicknamed “the Oracle of Omaha” for good reason. He seems to know what to look for when it comes to buying stocks and investing in successful companies.

Buffett bought a struggling textile company, Berkshire Hathaway, in 1965 and turned it into an investing powerhouse. Now, the company has a market cap of around $650 billion with holdings in plenty of companies you may have heard of. The company’s class A shares have famously never split, making a single share cost around $440,000. Its class B shares have split once in a 50-for-1 stock split in 2010. Today, those shares are trading at around $290 per share.

If you want to invest like Warren Buffett and grow your wealth, here are some stocks in Berkshire Hathaway’s portfolio that may appeal to you. 

Apple is the workhorse of Buffett’s portfolio for Berkshire Hathaway (BRKA), accounting for more than 42% of the company’s portfolio. That piece represents more than $150 billion of Berkshire Hathaway’s holdings with a stock price of around $160 a share. Apple reached a 52-week high of $182.94 on Jan. 4.

Bank of America has one of the biggest positions of Berkshire Hathaway’s portfolio with more than 1 billion shares making up around 10% of Berkshire’s investments. That means about 13% of the financial institution’s shares are in Buffett’s hands.

Bank of America traded at a 52-week high of $50.11 in February, but has since fallen to around $34 per share. The company also recently announced that shareholders should expect a bigger dividend this year for their holdings compared with last year.

Chevron is one of several energy stocks in Berkshire Hathaway’s holdings, making up 7% of the portfolio. The oil and gas company has been a relatively recent addition to Berkshire’s holdings with Buffett buying his first Chevron shares in 2020. Chevron is currently trading around $155 after reaching a 52-week high of $182.40 in June.

Take a big drink from Coca-Cola, which commands about 7% of Berkshire’s portfolio. Buffett bought his first shares of Coca-Cola in 1988 and is still a fan of the company. In fact, he once said he drinks five cans of Coke products a day and favors Diet Coke or Cherry Coke. The Berkshire portfolio holds more than $25 billion worth of KO.

Around 7% of Berkshire Hathaway’s holdings are in the financial company American Express. But the number of shares held in Berkshire’s portfolio is equal to 20% of Amex’s stock, worth around $25 billion.

The company is currently trading at around $160 a share, down from a 52-week high of 199.55 on Feb. 16. Berkshire began to add American Express to its portfolio in the mid-’90s, making it a stalwart of Buffett’s company holdings.

Buffett can use his five Cokes a day to wash down his Kraft macaroni and cheese or fries with Heinz ketchup. Berkshire Hathaway owns more than 26% of the company’s shares for a total of more than $12 billion. Kraft Heinz is trading around $38 a share, which puts it close to its share price a year ago.

But the stock has been one of the more challenging investments for Berkshire Hathaway. In recent years, Kraft Heinz took a large write-off due to a merger and endured an investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Buffett also once said holding the company’s shares had hurt his long-term investments.

Berkshire Hathaway owns around 20% of Occidental Petroleum’s shares, which totals 188.4 million shares. In fact, Buffett recently purchased additional shares of the energy company to bump up his investment. The company’s shares are trading near $63 per share, which is above where it started the year around $31 per share.

Moody’s is another financial services company that Buffett has added to his company’s portfolio. Berkshire holds more than 24 million shares of Moody’s for a total of around $8 billion.

Moody’s is currently trading around $320, down from its 52-week high of $407.94 in November 2021. But there may be more bad news for shareholders as Deutsche Bank downgraded the stock from buy to hold in August.

Berkshire Hathaway owns more than $6 billion in shares of U.S. Bancorp, which is another financial services company. The Minnesota-based company makes up around 2% of Berkshire’s total stock portfolio.

Its stock price currently sits at $47, but it has been a bit of a rough ride for shareholders this year. The stock reached a 52-week high of $63.57 back in January.

Another tech company in Berkshire Hathaway’s portfolio is gaming giant Activision. Buffett picked up shares of Activision at the end of 2021 and got a boost in his investment after Microsoft announced it was trying to acquire the gaming company.

Activision makes up around 1.5% of Berkshire’s holdings, and the stock is trading near $80 per share. That’s close to its 52-week high of $86.90 in early January after Microsoft said it intended to take over the company.

This list of potential stocks may be a guide to how to invest your money if you aren’t sure about which stocks would be best in your portfolio. But don’t worry if you’re still not sure about investing in individual stocks. Buffett has an alternative suggestion for you.

“In my view, for most people, the best thing to do is owning the S&P; 500 index fund,” he told investors during Berkshire Hathaway’s annual meeting in May 2020.

That may be good news for investors who want a secure place to invest without any added potential risk from individual stocks.