Warren Buffett keeps winning. These 4 charts show how.
At 94 years old, Warren Buffett is still beating the market.
The billionaire investor and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway continues to prove that investing based on fundamentals and holding on for the long term is the way to generate consistent gains — even while the rest of the market is battered by volatility.
Investors who have gotten on board with his philosophy are impressed.
“He is the one guy who has proven that fundamentals can still prevail and still matter, and that time in the market and not timing the market begets success in investing, and it goes into the face of all that’s popular, but if you don’t believe him, count the commas,” Michael Farr, CEO of investment firm Farr, Miller & Washington, said, referring to the vast wealth Buffett has created for his shareholders.
For investors flocking to Omaha for Berkshire Hathaway’s annual meeting on Saturday, gleaning insights from the legendary billionaire and his investment decisions is a top priority.
These four charts of some of Buffett’s top investments show how he continues to navigate the market successfully.
Berkshire Hathaway stock is trading near record highs despite the ongoing market volatility sparked by President Donald Trump’s tariffs.
The 17% year-to-date rally is a stark contrast to the 5% decline for the S&P 500—it’s also catapulted Buffett higher on the list of the world’s richest people.
According to Bloomberg data, the billionaire is the sixth richest person in the world, with a net worth of $166 billion.
Buffett and his team at Berkshire perfectly timed their massive investment in Apple stock.
Since Berkshire Hathaway first invested in the iPhone maker in the first quarter of 2016, the stock has soared more than 800%.
More importantly, perhaps, is the timing of Buffett’s sale of the stock. The conglomerate trimmed about 50% of its Apple stake in the second quarter of 2024. The stock has since traded sideways due to concerns about its status in the AI race and a scramble to reorganize its supply chain amid the Trump tariffs.
One stock long-held in Berkshire Hathaway’s portfolio is Coca-Cola.
The stock has been on a tear this year, rising about 15% and trading near record highs. Buffett first purchased shares of the beverage maker in 1988, shortly after the Black Monday stock market crash.
Buffett hasn’t looked back. His position has grown significantly, with his firm holding nearly 10% of all outstanding shares of Coca-Cola.
“They don’t call him the Oracle of Omaha for no reason,” Adam Patti, CEO of VistaShares, told BI. “Buffett has a remarkable knack for understanding the market, and his process of seeking value and having patience has clearly worked for him over the long haul.”
One under-the-radar holding in Berkshire Hathaway’s portfolio is Verisign, a company that registers .com and .net domain names.
The internet stock has soared 35% year-to-date and is trading at record highs, eclipsing the peak it saw during the 2000 dot-com bubble for the first time ever in April.
Berkshire Hathaway’s stake in Verisign has grown to 14%, and the conglomerate was buying more shares of the company as recently as the fourth quarter of last year.
To be sure, it’s not just Buffett making the investment decisions for Berkshire Hathaway.
“He has clearly moved into the role of chairman and non-executive chairman, and Abel is clearly making day-to-day decisions,” Farr said of Greg Abel, the chairperson of Berkshire Hathaway Energy and the successor to Buffett.
But that doesn’t discount Buffett’s legendary status among investors.
“There has been no better investor in history than Warren Buffett,” Patti said.