When doing market research to figure out what stock may be a good choice to invest in, it is often a good idea to look at what large players in the stock market are investing in. This often entails looking at the trades of large hedge funds, corporations, and other types of private equity.
Another way to see if a stock is being bought by big players in the market is to look at the trades of the world’s richest individuals.
While it is true that many billionaires acquired their fortune through owning a large amount of stock in one business, most likely their own, some have gained their fortune through a diversified portfolio consisting of smaller holdings.
One example of this is Warren Buffet, who made his fortune through buying in most cases minority stakes in other companies, such as the company featured in this article did.
In this article, we’re going to be going over some Warren Buffett’s stock trades so that you can get an idea of what the richest individuals are investing in.
Warren Buffet
As mentioned previously, Warren Buffet made his fortune through investing, which makes him a great person to research further. While he has not made his personal portfolio publicly available, his investment company, Berkshire Hathaway, in which he owns 37.3% of, has made their trades publicly available.
According to CNBC’s page that tracks Berkshire Hathaway, the holdings of the portfolio are as follows:
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Apple
The largest holding in Berkshire Hathaway is Apple. In fact, it represents 51% of the portfolio’s value. The stake is made up of 915 million shares, and is valued at $177 billion as of late June 2023. Additionally, the stake itself is 5.9% of Apple, which is quite a big stake considering Apple is the largest publicly traded company in the world.
If you were going to guess when Buffett first bought into Apple without having prior knowledge into his trades, you would probably assume like many others that he bought Apple very early on, but that is actually not the case at all.
Buffett’s first Apple trade wasn’t until 2016, where he would buy 39 million shares at a price range of $23.36 to $27.39. He would then continuously buy Apple shares until 2018 when he began to sell, then would buy again in 2022 and 2023. So far, he has a net gain of 370% on his investment.
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Bank of America
Berkshire Hathaway owns 13% of Bank of America, which makes up 8.2% of the portfolio. They hold a staggering 1.032 billion shares at a share price of $27.68. Buffet first bought into Bank of America in 2007, and has since bought on 12 more occasions, and sold on 5 occasions.
Taking into account all of his trades in Bank of America, Buffett has gained a solid 6.9% on his investments in Bank of America.
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American Express
At 6.7% of Buffett’s portfolio, American Express is his third largest holding. He has a staggering 20.8% stake in the company, and first bought into the company in 1998 buying 50 million shares. He would buy and sell American Express in large quantities over the following years netting himself an investor gain of 178% from his trades.
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Coca Cola
Arguably his second most well known holding, Coca Cola makes up 6.5% of his portfolio and consists of 9.3% of the total Coca Cola shares out there. Like American Express, Buffet would complete his first trade buying Coca Cola in 1998, in which he acquired 200 million shares.
Since his first purchase, he has bought Coca Cola on 10 occasions, and sold on 8. He has gained 72% on his investment.
Wrapping It Up
Now that you have an idea on what Warren Buffett’s top holdings are, we recommend doing additional research into his trades. For example, you can look at Berkshire Hathaway’s most recent trades in the stock market in addition to their top holdings.
Check out stockcircle’s page that contains the latest trades from Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway. Keep in mind that just because Buffett has invested in something, doesn’t mean it’s guaranteed to go up. While he has made a lot of successful trades in the past, there are still some trades he has done that didn’t turn out to be profitable.
