Key Points:

• Berkshire Hathaway reached a $1 trillion market cap, largely due to Apple stock gains.
• Buffett’s strategy is long-term value investing with a highly concentrated portfolio.
• Berkshire also owns significant private assets like Geico and the largest U.S. railroad.
• As good as Buffett is, so far he’s overlooked ‘The Next Nvidia’. See what all the excitement is about by clicking here now

Doug and Lee discuss Warren Buffett’s recent achievement of reaching a $1 trillion market cap for Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK-B), highlighting how impressive it is for a value investor like Buffett to reach this milestone. They note that unlike tech giants who rapidly achieved such valuations, Buffett has built his wealth steadily over decades through concentrated investments in a few key stocks and by owning a variety of private companies. They also mention Buffett’s massive cash reserves and speculate on what his next big investment might be, considering his tendency to make strategic purchases during market downturns.

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Edited Video Transcript:

Our friend Warren Buffett.

He is our friend.

He had a trillion dollars, his company, after all these years, decades, and, you know, we have companies like Nvidia that did it over, you know, from 500 billion to a trillion a week.

But after all these years, after all these decades, he finally made it.

What happened? Why has he finally crossed the finish line?

Well, it’s been an astonishing year, you know, for the stock market for the last two years, number one.

More importantly, again, as we discussed in the past, his Apple position went up big.

And so he shot half of that.

And more importantly, I think that hitting $1 trillion for what is kind of a fundamental value investor, which is basically what Warren Buffett is, that’s astonishing because the only other companies that have $1 trillion market cap are mega cap techs like Meta and Google and companies like that. Microsoft.

I mean, so the mere fact that a long-term value buyer who has a very concentrated portfolio has done it, I think it speaks volumes.

And plus, he’s almost 94.

Yeah. And one of the things that I look at and impresses me so much about Buffett is he earned his money the hard way.

Yeah, he did.

Year after year, making good investments.

It’s not like he discovered one thing like, you know, the best smartphone for search.

I mean, he’s really had to do this, unlike those other companies.

He’s built this company brick by brick.

He has.

And, you know, when you look through the portfolio, and I’ve written about it for years at 24-7, and when you look at the portfolio, it’s extremely interesting.

I mean, seven stocks or six stocks make up 72 percent of the portfolio, six.

And that is concentration that most portfolio managers don’t have the nerve to even take a swing at.

But, you know, he has 400 million shares of Coca-Cola, which he’s had forever, you know, and more importantly, he doesn’t pay out the dividends.

So and now he’s because of dividends and cash, he’s got 277 billion in cash and a reported $240 billion of that is in treasury bills yielding 5% or 4.75% because they’re short term.

And what people tend to forget, Doug, is that that $1 trillion is just his public stock holdings, just Berkshire Hathaway’s public stock holdings.

And for our readers and viewers today, look in there and see what he owns privately.

It’s astonishing.

He owns Geico.

He owns Dairy Queen.

He owns Justin Boots.

He owns Acme Brick.

You name it.

He owns all of these companies, either 90 percent or in many cases, 100 percent.

Doesn’t he own the largest railroad in the United States?

Yeah. Yeah.

And it’s just astonishing.

And that’s why that’s what’s been so good for Berkshire investors over the last 30, especially the last 30 years.

Is when he has had huge stashes of cash, like now, he’ll go in and take out a company he likes.

And often it’s just a real simple brick and mortar sort of idea.

But man, when you look at that private portfolio and tack that onto a trillion, then you’ve got some huge value.

Amazing.

Well, I want to say we’ll come back to Buffett at some point.

But the point is, is we’re going to come back to Buffett always.

So I don’t need to say, well, we’ll come back to Buffett.

It’s like, well, we may talk about Buffett next time because he’s just, you know.

Because he’s 94.

And he bought General Motors or something like that.

Yeah, that’s the question.

What’s he waiting for?

You know, we commented recently, all he’s gone in and really bought big is Chubb and Ulta, the cosmetic store, you know.

And the cosmetics just makes insurance.

He loves insurance.

But the cosmetics really makes sense because that never goes cheap.

So he may wait for the market to sell down.

He’s either waiting for a massive sell off, which I think he sees coming, or he’s got his eye on a prize and he’s waiting for it to get worse like Boeing or something like that.

Yeah, that could be.

Yep.

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