Many novice investors lose money chasing big returns. And that's why Buffett's first rule of investing is “don't lose money”. The thing is, if an investors makes a poor investment decision and the value of that asset — stock — goes down 50%, the investment has to go 100% up to get back to where it started.
Coca-Cola: $24.3 billion (8.2% of invested assets)
Consumer staples goliath Coca-Cola (KO -1.04%) is the stock Buffett's company has held the longest (since 1988), and it's also considered a forever holding by the Oracle of Omaha.
Musk's best investments include PayPal, SpaceX, DeepMind Technologies, Tesla, and The Boring Company. Elon Musk is an engineer, industrial designer, and technology entrepreneur known for disrupting multiple industries. Musk holds the distinction of being the world's richest person as of January 2025.
Top Warren Buffett Stocks
Coca-Cola (KO), 400 million. Kraft Heinz (KHC), 325.6 million. Apple (AAPL), 300 million. Occidental Petroleum (OXY), 264.3 million.
Warren Buffett is buying stock again as Berkshire Hathaway snapped up shares of Occidental Petroleum, Sirius XM Holdings, and VeriSign in recent days, according to Form 4 filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission late Thursday.
“We test the wisdom of retaining earnings by assessing whether retention, over time, delivers shareholders at least $1 of market value for each $1 retained.” This will assess whether management's capital allocation decisions are creating value for shareholders.
The 90/10 rule in investing is a comment made by Warren Buffett regarding asset allocation. The rule stipulates investing 90% of one's investment capital toward low-cost stock-based index funds and the remainder 10% to short-term government bonds.
Always sell a stock it if falls 7%-8% below what you paid for it. This basic principle helps you always cap your potential downside. If you're following rules for how to buy stocks and a stock you own drops 7% to 8% from what you paid for it, something is wrong.
Despite being the sixth-richest person globally, Warren Buffett continues to drive a 2014 Cadillac XTS he purchased with hail damage. Although he can afford any luxury vehicle, Buffett prefers the practicality of his 10-year-old car.
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust's top holdings are Microsoft Corporation (US:MSFT) , Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (US:BRK.B) , Waste Management, Inc. (US:WM) , Canadian National Railway Company (US:CNI) , and Caterpillar Inc. (US:CAT) .
Shares of Toast climbed 100% in 2024, handily outpacing the S&P 500 index. Toast wasn't the only stock that doubled in value in 2024. Shares of Revolve (NYSE: RVLV) and On Holding (NYSE: ONON) also doubled last year, climbing 102% and 103%, respectively.
Despite selling more shares of Apple in the third quarter of 2024, the tech giant still holds the top spot in Berkshire's portfolio. Apple is such a massive holding that Buffett has referred to it as Berkshire Hathaway's "third-largest business" after its wholly-owned insurance and railroad businesses.
Warren Buffett says he'd give up an extra year of his life to be able to eat anything he wants. Famously a fan of junk food, the 92-year-old has said he drinks 5 cans of Coke a day and eats McDonald's daily. "I always tell people: I found everything I like to eat by the time I was six," he told CNBC.
At the start of 2024, Jeff Bezos owned 988,251,817 shares of Amazon stock, according to the SEC. In November of the same year, he owned 909,709,895 shares. This means he sold roughly 8% of his total shares, but he also still owns roughly 9% in Amazon.
Apple. Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) has ranked as the largest holding in Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway portfolio for several years. The iPhone maker is still at the top early in the new year. Berkshire owns 300 million shares of Apple worth around $73.2 billion, representing 24.8% of its total holdings.
Elon Musk is the wealthiest person in the world, with an estimated net worth of US$426 billion as of January 2025, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, and $416 billion according to Forbes, primarily from his ownership stakes in Tesla, Inc. and SpaceX.