6 Stocks Warren Buffett Is Buying (and 11 He's Selling)

Berkshire Hathaway initiated one position last quarter and pared bets on the financial sector, among other moves.

Warren Buffett stocks berkshire hathaway
(Image credit: Getty Images)

Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.B) added just one new position to the holding company's U.S. equity portfolio in the fourth quarter and once again cut its stake in Bank of America (BAC). But at least BRK.B didn't sell any more Apple (AAPL).

Berkshire, of which Buffett serves as chairman and CEO, continued to reduce its exposure to equities in the most recent quarter, according to a 13-F filing made with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday. That's not a surprise. Berkshire Hathaway was a net seller of equities and halted stock buybacks in the previous quarter as valuations became increasingly stretched.

Perhaps most concerning is the way Buffett had been slashing some of Berkshire's largest positions – namely Apple. Never mind that the Oracle of Omaha explained that he made the sales in anticipation of higher corporate tax rates at some point in the future. As Apple's sixth-largest shareholder, Berkshire's continuing interest in the iPhone maker has marketwide implications.

Subscribe to Kiplinger’s Personal Finance

Be a smarter, better informed investor.

Save up to 74%
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/hwgJ7osrMtUWhk5koeVme7-200-80.png

Sign up for Kiplinger’s Free E-Newsletters

Profit and prosper with the best of expert advice on investing, taxes, retirement, personal finance and more - straight to your e-mail.

Profit and prosper with the best of expert advice - straight to your e-mail.

Sign up

But before we get into Berkshire's most recent buys and sells, it's important to know that Buffett has always run a highly concentrated portfolio. Excluding the company's Japanese brokerage stocks, Apple alone accounts for more than 26% of Berkshire's equity holdings, according to data from WhaleWisdom. (That's down from almost 50% a year ago.)

Furthermore, Berkshire's top five U.S. equity holdings comprise about 72% of its portfolio value, while the top 10 account for about 90%.

As Buffett likes to say, diversification is for those who don't know what they're doing.

Also please note that Buffett handles the largest positions in the Berkshire Hathaway portfolio. Buffett says his co-managers – Ted Weschler and Todd Combs, who is CEO of Geico – act independently. They're thought to manage about 10% of the portfolio. Buffettologists generally assume Berkshire's smaller buys and sells are the work of these colleagues.

Stocks Warren Buffett is buying

Berkshire Hathaway added just one stock to its holdings in Q4: Constellation Brands (STZ), the beer and wine and spirit maker whose brands include Corona Extra, Modelo Especial and Robert Mondavi Winery. BRK.B bought 5.6 million shares worth $1.2 billion as of the end of Q4. At less than 0.5% of the portfolio, STZ is Berkshire's 19th largest holding.

In other buys, as previously reported, Berkshire upped its stake in Verisign (VRSN) by 3.6%, or 455,844 shares, bringing its total position to 13.3 million shares. With a value of $2.7 billion as of December 31, the domain name registry services provider is BRK.B's 12th largest position, accounting for a bit more than 1% of the portfolio.

It should come as little surprise that Berkshire continued to add to some favored holdings. Buffett boosted the conglomerate's investment in Occidental Petroleum (OXY) by 3.5%, or 8.9 million shares in Q4. With 264.2 million shares worth $13.1 billion, OXY is Berkshire's sixth most important position. Note that OXY shares lost almost a fifth of their value last year and traded as low as $46 at one point in December. It wouldn't be the first time Buffett went bargain hunting in OXY stock, which he first bought for Berkshire in 2022.

Elsewhere, Berkshire added to recent additions, such as Domino's Pizza (DPZ) and Pool (POOL). The holding company initiated the stakes in the third quarter of 2024 and the size suggests they were not Buffett's picks. But let's take a brief look anyway.

The conglomerate bought another 1.1 million shares in pizza chain DPZ, increasing its holdings by a whopping 86%. With 2.4 million shares worth $999.9 million at Q4's end, DPZ accounts for less than 0.4% of the portfolio, or its 22nd largest investment.

As for Pool, which describes itself as the largest distributor of supplies, equipment and machinery for swimming pools worldwide, Berkshire Hathaway upped its stake by 48%, or 194,632 shares. POOL's weight of 0.08% makes it the 30th largest holding in the Berkshire Hathaway portfolio. Suffice to say, this name won't be all that important to the conglomerate's overall results.

Lastly, Berkshire continued to add to its position in Sirius XM Holdings (SIRI), increasing its stake by 11.7%. Berkshire now holds 117.5 million shares worth $2.7 billion as of December 31. The stake further cements BRK.B's position as SIRI's largest shareholder, owning 35% of its common stock outstanding.

Stocks Warren Buffett is selling

Buffett sold more Bank of America last quarter – and slashed exposure to some other big bank stocks.

BAC is the most important position, however, having been a major holding since 2017. Berkshire reduced its stake in the nation's second-largest bank by assets by almost 15% in Q4, selling more than 117 million shares. With 680.2 million shares worth almost $30 billion as of December 31, BAC is Berkshire's third-largest holding, accounting for more than 11% of the portfolio value.

In addition to BAC, Berkshire pared its stakes in Capital One Financial (COF) by 18% and Citigroup (C) by 74%. At 0.5% of the portfolio, COF is the holding company's 18th most important investment. (Buffett sold COF last quarter too.) Citigroup, at less than 0.4%, fell to an even more immaterial 21st place.

In other moves, Berkshire lightened up on Charter Communications (CHTR), as it did the previous quarter. CHTR is now less than 0.3% of the portfolio value. Other stocks Berkshire continued to ease up on included Formula One Group (FWONK), Nu Holdings (NU), T–Mobile US (TMUS) and Louisiana-Pacific (LPX).

Finally, Berkshire exited what was left of its tiny position in Ulta Beauty (ULTA), and sold off its stakes in the SPDR S&P 500 ETF Trust (SPY) and the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (VOO).

Related Content

Dan Burrows
Senior Investing Writer, Kiplinger.com

Dan Burrows is Kiplinger's senior investing writer, having joined the august publication full time in 2016.

A long-time financial journalist, Dan is a veteran of SmartMoney, MarketWatch, CBS MoneyWatch, InvestorPlace and DailyFinance. He has written for The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Consumer Reports, Senior Executive and Boston magazine, and his stories have appeared in the New York Daily News, the San Jose Mercury News and Investor's Business Daily, among other publications. As a senior writer at AOL's DailyFinance, Dan reported market news from the floor of the New York Stock Exchange and hosted a weekly video segment on equities.

Once upon a time – before his days as a financial reporter and assistant financial editor at legendary fashion trade paper Women's Wear Daily – Dan worked for Spy magazine, scribbled away at Time Inc. and contributed to Maxim magazine back when lad mags were a thing. He's also written for Esquire magazine's Dubious Achievements Awards.

In his current role at Kiplinger, Dan writes about equities, fixed income, currencies, commodities, funds, macroeconomics, demographics, real estate, cost of living indexes and more.

Dan holds a bachelor's degree from Oberlin College and a master's degree from Columbia University.

Disclosure: Dan does not trade stocks or other securities. Rather, he dollar-cost averages into cheap funds and index funds and holds them forever in tax-advantaged accounts.