Warren Buffett’s Net Worth Jumps $4 Billion

By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Feb 3, 7:04AM EST · Published Feb 2, 9:45AM EST

Quick Read

Warren Buffett’s net worth rose by $4 billion so far this year.
He is among the greatest investors of all time and has a wide range of holdings.

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Warren Buffett’s Net Worth Jumps $4 Billion — © Alex Wong / Getty Images News via Getty Images

94-year-old Warren Buffett, born during the Great Depression, has a net worth of $147 billion, which has risen by just over $4 billion this year. Most is because of the success of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (NYSE: BRK-B | BRK.B Price Prediction). That is the flagship of his wealth, which he created in 1970. A proof of the magnitude of his success is that $10,000 put into Berkshire 30 years ago would be worth $682,000 today. The stock is up 3% this year. Its current market cap is just above $1 trillion.

Buffett Investments

Coca-Cola, railroads, and more.

Buffett’s investment policy is not complex. He primarily buys public companies with strong brands that he thinks are undervalued. He has been a long-term holder of Coca-Cola Co. (NYSE: KO) and, until recently, Bank of America Corp. (NYSE: BAC). Occasionally, for reasons he rarely discloses, he does not hold for decades. One example is Apple Inc. (NASDAQ: AAPL). He first bought the stock in 2016, and he soured on the stock recently.

Buffett will sometimes buy public companies and take them private. He bought railroad Burlington Northern Santa Fe in 2010. He did the same with insurance company Geico in 1995. When the Geico deal closed, he commented, “It’s the low-cost operator in a field that is very big, and the low-cost operator tends to win over time.”

Buffett has also bought some oddball companies. He bought Nebraska Furniture Mart in 1983 for $60 million. He bought the TV station WPLG in 2014. The station is based in Miami.

Buffett favors insurance companies. He owns Berkshire Hathaway Reinsurance Group, National Indemnity Company, and Berkshire Hathaway Specialty Insurance, which focuses on business and commercial insurance. Describing these investments he said, “It’s so much fun because you get the money at the start, you know, and then you find out whether you’ve done something stupid later on.”

What Buffett observers cannot figure out is why Berkshire is holding $325 billion in cash. A Bloomberg reporter wrote that it means he is worried about a large market downturn. Or maybe he is just looking for something to buy.

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.