Warren Buffett, the former CEO of Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE:BRK-B | BRK-B Price Prediction), handed the reins to Greg Abel on January 1, 2026, after more than six decades leading one of the world’s most admired investment operations. Buffett remains chairman, but his active tenure as chief executive is now history. His influence on how long-term investors think about stocks, however, is not going anywhere.
As a current or soon-to-be retiree, you can apply Buffett’s principles to build a durable portfolio using exchange traded funds (ETFs). Picking Buffett-style funds means buying ETFs that you could hold for years, ones that offer reliable growth, good value, wide diversification, and perhaps some dividend income as a bonus.
Buffett can inspire you to own great businesses, and you can capture that spirit with carefully selected ETFs. With that in mind, here are three funds that honor the Oracle of Omaha’s core principles and can help chart a course for a more financially secure retirement.
Invesco QQQ Trust (QQQ)
Buffett is not typically thought of as a technology enthusiast. Yet Berkshire’s equity portfolio has long held prominent positions in several Nasdaq 100 components, and the Apple stake, even after being trimmed by roughly 75% in the nine quarters before Buffett’s retirement, remained the conglomerate’s largest single stock holding through the transition.
Today, Berkshire Hathaway’s portfolio continues to hold stocks tied to the technology-heavy Nasdaq 100 index, including mega-cap names such as Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL), Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), and Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN), each of which sits comfortably inside the Nasdaq 100.
Getting broad exposure to these technology titans is straightforward with the Invesco QQQ Trust (NASDAQ:QQQ). The fund tracks the Nasdaq 100 across 102 stocks, carries over $490 billion in assets under management, and has delivered an annualized return of roughly 18% over the past decade. Its expense ratio is just 0.18% per year, an extremely low hurdle for that level of diversification and historical performance.
The fund’s annual dividend yield runs around 0.45%, which is modest, but more than enough to offset that rock-bottom management fee. More importantly, companies like Apple, Amazon, and Alphabet each have what Buffett would describe as wide economic “moats.” Owning QQQ is one way to build a protective barrier around a retirement portfolio while staying positioned for long-term growth in the technology sector.
Vanguard Value ETF (VTV)
Buffett’s reputation rests above all on one discipline: buying good businesses at reasonable prices and holding them for a very long time. For retirees who share that instinct but lack the resources to research individual stocks, the Vanguard Value ETF (NYSEARCA:VTV) does the legwork systematically.
VTV tracks the CRSP US Large Cap Value Index and currently holds approximately 326 large-cap stocks spread across financials, industrials, energy, health care, technology, and more. That breadth means exposure to sector leaders in a single, low-cost package, including names like Home Depot (NYSE:HD), Bank of America (NYSE:BAC), and Exxon Mobil (NYSE:XOM).
The expense ratio is a barely-there 0.03% per year, one of the lowest of any equity ETF available to retail investors. For that cost, you get a trailing P/E of roughly 22x, a valuation that reflects the fund’s strong one-year total return of more than 25% while still sitting well below the broader growth-oriented market. The dividend yield currently runs near 1.9%, providing a modest income stream on top of capital appreciation potential. For a retiree who thinks the way Buffett does about quality and price, VTV is a natural fit.
Schwab U.S. Dividend Equity ETF (SCHD)
To round out this three-fund lineup, the Schwab U.S. Dividend Equity ETF (NYSEARCA:SCHD) brings a dividend-first orientation that aligns naturally with Buffett’s long-standing affection for cash-generating businesses. Berkshire’s portfolio has held dividend payers like Coca-Cola for decades, and SCHD is built entirely around that same preference for consistent, growing payouts.
The fund currently holds 103 stocks selected for a long track record of distributions and fundamental strength, including widely recognized names such as Coca-Cola (NYSE:KO), Lockheed Martin (NYSE:LMT), Chevron (NYSE:CVX), and Verizon Communications (NYSE:VZ). SCHD’s annual reconstitution process mechanically trims positions whose yields have compressed from price gains and replaces them with stronger-growing dividend payers, a discipline that has helped the fund deliver a cumulative total return of more than 480% since its 2011 launch.
The expense ratio sits at a low 0.06% per year, and the fund’s trailing P/E of approximately 17x signals that its holdings remain reasonably valued relative to the broader market. The annual dividend yield currently stands near 3.4%, providing meaningful income for retirees who want their portfolio to generate cash alongside capital growth. Taken together, QQQ, VTV, and SCHD cover growth, value, and income — the three pillars of a Buffett-style approach adapted for the ETF era.
Editor’s note: This article was updated to reflect that Greg Abel became Berkshire Hathaway’s CEO on January 1, 2026, with Buffett remaining as chairman. It also corrects the VTV section, which previously mis-attributed the 0.03% expense ratio to QQQ rather than VTV, updates VTV’s holdings count from 312 to approximately 326 and its trailing P/E from 20.4x to approximately 22x, revises SCHD’s holdings from 101 to 103, adjusts SCHD’s dividend yield from 3.82% to approximately 3.4%, and updates SCHD’s P/E from 17.06x to approximately 17x based on current data. A typo (“Cola-Cola”) was also corrected to “Coca-Cola.”
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