BUFFETT'S LATEST PORTFOLIO MOVES

The Oracle of Omaha added a beverage company and said buh-bye to more bank shares.

- BY DAN BURROWS

WARREN Buffett kicks off Berkshire Hathaway's annual meeting on May 3, marking the conglomerate's 60th year under the 94-year-old's leadership. In a letter to shareholders and in the company’s annual report, Buffett disclosed that Berkshire’s stock portfolio ended 2024 worth $272 billion, down from $354 billion at year-end 2023, while cash and cash-equivalent securities jumped to $334.2 billion, up from $167.6 billion—an indication of how hard it has been for Buffett and his co-managers, Ted Weschler and Todd Combs, to find the kind of stock bargains they prefer. One exception is the holding company’s stake in a handful of Japanese conglomerates, now worth $23.5 billion, which Buffett said investors can expect to grow over time.

Whether we're talking about Berkshire’s biggest bets or the scores of stocks it maintains at the margins, it’s clear that the portfolio’s focus has changed dramatically over the past few years. Although old-guard favorites such as American Express and Coca-Cola still form the core of the portfolio, Buffett and his co-managers have taken a shine to names such as Apple and Amazon.com, and even to lesser-known companies such as financial services firm Nu Holdings. Buffett owned airline stocks at the start of 2020; now he holds none. Banks were aces among Buffett stocks to begin 2020; Berkshire soon kicked most of them to the curb. And it seems like only yesterday that Buffett was an enthusiastic buyer of select pharmaceutical names. Today, most of those positions have been closed out, too.