4 ETFs That Mirror Warren Buffett’s Buy-and-Hold Strategy in 2026

Warren Buffett built his fortune by buying businesses with durable competitive advantages at reasonable prices and holding them for decades. Now well into the second half of 2026, tracking these systematic frameworks has become more consequential than ever. The first half of the year delivered a harsh sorting mechanism across value strategies, punishing funds that over-indexed on bloated tech moats while rewarding pure cash flow discipline and low-fee stability.

MOAT: The Purest Expression of the Moat Philosophy

VanEck Morningstar Wide Moat ETF (NYSEARCA:MOAT) is the most direct institutional translation of Buffett’s core idea: buy companies with sustainable competitive advantages at a discount to fair value. Morningstar’s equity analysts assign economic moat ratings based on structural advantages including switching costs, network effects, intangible assets, and cost advantages. MOAT holds only companies that earn a “wide moat” designation and simultaneously trade at attractive valuations relative to Morningstar’s fair value estimates.

That dual filter separates this fund from a generic quality ETF. A company can have a wide moat and still be excluded if it trades above fair value. The index rebalances quarterly, rotating toward names that have become more attractively priced. The result is a systematic buy-low discipline that mirrors Buffett’s insistence on margin of safety.

The portfolio holds roughly 50 to 60 names, with no single position exceeding about 3%. The sector mix skews toward information technology at 27%, consumer defensive at 18%, and healthcare at 18%. The tech weighting reflects the modern reality that software businesses often carry the most durable moats. Current holdings include Fortinet, Zoetis, and Danaher alongside Microsoft and NVIDIA.

The fund carries a net expense ratio of 0.46% and total net assets of approximately $11.8 billion. After a difficult start to the year, MOAT has recovered strongly, posting a year-to-date gain of roughly 9.7% through mid-August 2026. That early stumble had an identifiable cause: Morningstar’s Q1 data showed that U.S. wide-moat stocks underperformed broader allocations, with high-profile holdings like Microsoft and Meta suffering double-digit drawdowns as artificial intelligence shifted from a universal growth catalyst into a more selective competitive force. The subsequent recovery reflects improved valuations across the moat universe as those selloffs created the very buying opportunities the index is designed to exploit.

COWZ: Buffett’s Cash Flow Obsession, Systematized

Buffett has long emphasized free cash flow as the true measure of a business’s earning power, preferring it over reported earnings that accounting choices can distort. Pacer US Cash Cows 100 ETF (NYSEARCA:COWZ) operationalizes that preference by screening the Russell 1000 for the 100 companies with the highest free cash flow yield and rebalancing the portfolio every quarter.

The result is a portfolio that gravitates systematically toward businesses generating more cash than they need, often trading at depressed prices relative to their cash production. As valuations shift, the fund’s quarterly rebalances also shift sector composition meaningfully. As of late 2026, the sector mix is led by technology at approximately 25.7%, healthcare at about 19.9%, and energy at around 11.9%, with holdings including names that collectively generate substantial cash relative to their market prices.

Assets have grown to approximately $20 billion as of early September 2026, a meaningful expansion that reflects the fund’s strong year-to-date performance. The fund’s expense ratio is 0.49%, and its trailing price-to-earnings ratio of roughly 15 reflects the portfolio’s deep-value character. COWZ’s rules-based screening generates a fundamental profile that diverges sharply from the broader market, anchored by a high free cash flow yield that has cushioned the portfolio during momentum-driven selloffs throughout this year.

The tradeoff is sector concentration risk. Because free cash flow yield tends to cluster in certain industries, the portfolio can carry heavy exposure to energy or healthcare depending on where valuations sit. When those sectors lag, COWZ can underperform regardless of its fundamental merits.

OMAH: Direct Access to Berkshire’s Portfolio, With an Income Layer

VistaShares Target 15 Berkshire Select Income ETF (NYSEARCA:OMAH) mirrors the largest holdings of Berkshire Hathaway’s equity portfolio, adds Berkshire itself as a direct position, and overlays a covered call strategy to generate monthly income targeting a 15% annual yield. The fund is not affiliated with Berkshire Hathaway or Warren Buffett.

The holdings read like Berkshire’s 13-F filings. Apple sits near the top alongside Berkshire itself, followed by American Express, Occidental Petroleum, and Chevron. The financial sector dominates at roughly 39%, consistent with Buffett’s long-standing preference for financial services businesses with durable competitive positions. Consumer staples account for another meaningful slice.

The covered call overlay is the distinguishing structural feature. By writing calls against equity positions, the fund generates premium income that supplements dividends, allowing it to pursue that 15% income target. The cost of this approach is capped upside in strongly rising markets, since the calls obligate the fund to sell shares at the strike price if the underlying rallies past it.

OMAH has grown substantially since its March 2025 launch. Assets reached approximately $952 million as of July 31, 2026, up from $689 million in mid-May, reflecting continued investor appetite for options-income strategies. The trailing 12-month dividend yield runs near 15.3%, with the most recent monthly dividends coming in around $0.23 to $0.24 per share. The fund’s year-to-date total return has climbed to roughly 9.5% including those distributions. The expense ratio of 0.95% is the highest on this list, a meaningful drag relative to the passive alternatives covered here.

VTV: The Low-Cost Foundation for Broad Value Exposure

Vanguard Value Index Fund ETF (NYSEARCA:VTV) does not try to replicate Buffett’s stock-picking. It provides broad, passive exposure to large-cap value stocks at a cost consistent with his long-standing preference for low fees. Buffett has repeatedly argued that most investors are better served by low-cost index funds than by attempting to select individual stocks or pay active management fees.

The fund tracks the Morningstar US Large Cap Value Index and holds 326 companies. As of early September 2026, its largest position is JPMorgan Chase at approximately 3.5%, followed by Micron Technology at about 3.4%, Berkshire Hathaway at 3.0%, ExxonMobil at 2.4%, and Johnson and Johnson at 2.3%. The sector breakdown is more balanced than the other funds here, with financials at roughly 22%, healthcare at 15%, and industrials at 14%.

The expense ratio of 0.03% is the defining feature. At that cost, fees consume essentially nothing over time, a compounding advantage that grows more significant over multi-decade holding periods. Total net assets stood at approximately $192 billion as of August 31, 2026, cementing VTV’s status as one of the largest ETFs in existence. The fund has delivered a year-to-date gain of roughly 19.8%, making it the strongest performer among the four funds covered here over that period.

The tradeoff is breadth. VTV holds every large-cap stock that qualifies as value by the index’s methodology, including companies with no particular competitive advantage. An investor seeking only businesses with durable moats or exceptional cash generation will find the portfolio diluted by mediocre names that simply screen as cheap.

Which Fund Fits Which Investor

Each fund connects to Buffett’s investment principles through a different mechanism. MOAT applies Morningstar’s moat framework with a valuation filter and quarterly rotation, making it the closest systematic approximation of Buffett’s stock-picking philosophy. COWZ screens for free cash flow yield across the Russell 1000, shifting sector exposure as valuations change and delivering a portfolio profile that looks nothing like the broad market. OMAH holds Berkshire’s largest equity positions directly and uses a covered call overlay to generate monthly income, with the tradeoffs of capped upside and the highest expense ratio on this list. VTV offers broad, low-cost exposure to large-cap value at 0.03% annually, with a portfolio that includes the full range of companies meeting the index’s value criteria and the deepest liquidity of the four.

Editor’s note: This pass updated MOAT’s year-to-date return to approximately 9.7% and AUM to $11.8 billion through mid-August 2026; revised COWZ’s AUM to approximately $20 billion as of early September 2026 and refreshed its sector breakdown; updated OMAH’s AUM to approximately $952 million as of July 31, 2026 and corrected its most recent monthly dividend to $0.23 to $0.24 per share; and corrected VTV’s top holding to JPMorgan Chase (3.5%), with Micron Technology second (3.4%), updated VTV’s AUM to approximately $192 billion from Vanguard’s official figures as of August 31, 2026, and revised VTV’s year-to-date return to approximately 19.8%.

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