Major Changes Seen in Warren Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway Stock Holdings -- Including Apple

Investing

Published: May 16, 2016 8:50 am

Last Updated: January 13, 2020 8:01 am

Being the wealthiest man in the world on paper tends to draw some attention. This is why investors and outsiders watch new equity investment positions taken by, or sold by, Warren Buffett and Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE: BRK-A). The public U.S.-traded equity holdings for the period ended March 31, 2016 were listed as $128.569 billion.

24/7 Wall St. and its founders have followed the portfolio changes from Buffett’s top stock holdings for the better part of two decades now. Below we have added detail on each of the new changes, as well as added color on each of the pertinent holdings or added commentary on the value of those holdings through time.

Buffett’s total equity holdings are heavily concentrated in just a few top holdings: credit card giant American Express Co. (NYSE: AXP), banking giant Wells Fargo & Co. (NYSE: WFC), IT-services giant International Business Machines Corp. (NYSE: IBM), beverage giant Coca-Cola Co, (NYSE: KO), food-giant Kraft Heinz Co, (NYSE: KHC) and refining giant Phillips 66 (NYSE: PSX). Perhaps the biggest news was a new $1 billion or so stake in Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL).

Now that mergers and divestitures have been completed, Buffett’s top stock holdings in 2016 look massively different from the Buffett stocks at the start of 2015 and at the start of 2014. The combined value of these holdings was $131.855 billion in public equities at the end of 2015.

The total public stock holdings from the full 13F-HR filing do not include the full dollars held in preferred shares. This would otherwise include preferred shares of Dow Chemical Co. (NYSE: DOW) in 2009 and Bank of America Corp. (NYSE: BAC) from back in 2011. It also no longer includes Precision Castparts, now that Buffett’s acquisition of that company has been completed.