Warren Buffet's Current Holdings

Warren Buffett is a legend for many reasons. Foremost among them might be that he’s one of the few investors who clearly has an edge … and has for a long time. From 1976 to 2017 his Sharpe ratio (excess return relative to risk) was approximately double the overall market. Berkshire Hathaway now has over $700 billion in assets – and is still performing well. 

While many people consider Buffett to be an investor,  I also consider him to be an entrepreneur.

At the age of six, he started selling gum door to door. Obviously, selling gum wasn’t the key to his path to riches.  So, how did he make his first million?  Here’s a video that explains it.

 

via Coolnimation

For context, he made his first million at age 30, which was in 1960. For context, a million dollars in 1960 would be worth about $8.5 million today.

Buffet has always been honest about his bread-and-butter “trick” …  he buys quality companies at a discount and holds on to them.

Genuine Impact recently put together a chart of Buffet's current holdings. 

Twitter via GenuineImpact

There's a lot fascinating about his holdings. It is fascinating to recognize how much the world has changed – and yet how much it stayed the same. It's also interesting to see the amount of individual stocks he owns, like Apple for example (122 Billion). Despite the relative density of stocks, if you think about the capital at play, it's pretty centralized.

Diversification is important, but for a human, too much becomes a distraction … so Buffet famously buys what he knows.

Another Buffet hallmark, most of his stocks pay a dividend.

I was also surprised to see that he has a bit of money in ETFs like SPY despite investing in many of the individual stocks from the S&P 500. 

While this is an interesting graph to look at, it's important to know that this is one way to invest and might be a great way to get from a lot of money to more money - but this might not be the portfolio that works for the average investor (or you). 

There is blood in the streets … asking “What would Warren do?” might be a great place to start.