Whenever Berkshire Hathaway announces a change in its stock portfolio or CEO Warren Buffett comments about an individual company, it is big news.
Buffett turns 89 on Friday, and the most-covered story about Berkshire Hathaway’s investment portfolio this year has been the continuing difficulties of Kraft Heinz KHC, +0.75%. The company suffers not only from changes in consumer tastes, but also accounting problems, a heavy debt load and an investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission. Buffett has expressed regrets over Berkshire tremendous investment in the “old” Kraft and involvement in the 2015 merger with Heinz Co.
Among other investments, Buffett recently added to Berkshire’s Amazon.com AMZN, -0.57% holdings, after the position was first made public in May.
Read: Buffett says Amazon stock purchase doesn’t deviate from value-investing principles
Berkshire also has been increasing its holdings of bank stocks. The company is the largest owner of Bank of America BAC, +0.66%, with more than 10% of the common shares. Buffett said earlier this year that shares of large U.S. banks, including Berkshire holding JPMorgan Chase JPM, +0.59%, are significantly undervalued by the market.
Berkshire sold its position in Oracle ORCL, -0.19% and trimmed its Apple AAPL, -0.13% holdings earlier this year.
In May, Buffett said he planned to “put a lot of money” into energy-sector investments.
Berkshire portfolio winners and losers of 2019
Because of the continual changes in the portfolio, this list of Berkshire’s 45 publicly traded holdings as of June 30 is sorted by total return this year, and includes longer periods measuring returns, regardless of when Buffett decided to initiate, add to or trim positions:
| Company | Ticker | Total return – 2019 through Aug. 28 | Total Return – 3 Years | Total Return – 5 Years | Total Return – 10 Years | Total Return – 15 Years |
| StoneCo Ltd. Class A | STNE, -1.67% | 66% | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Moody’s Corp. | MCO, -0.36% | 54% | 109% | 146% | 795% | 650% |
| Restaurant Brands International Inc. | QSR, -0.04% | 51% | 77% | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Mastercard Incorporated Class A | MA, +0.00% | 48% | 194% | 278% | 1336% | N/A |
| Costco Wholesale Corp. | COST, -0.61% | 45% | 93% | 176% | 632% | 850% |
| Charter Communications Inc. Class A | CHTR, +0.58% | 41% | 60% | 132% | N/A | N/A |
| Synchrony Financial | SYF, -0.65% | 39% | 27% | 33% | N/A | N/A |
| Mondelez International Inc. Class A | MDLZ, -0.11% | 38% | 35% | 66% | 276% | 298% |
| VeriSign Inc. | VRSN, -1.02% | 37% | 172% | 261% | 1015% | 1289% |
| Visa Inc. Class A | V, -0.19% | 36% | 126% | 245% | 990% | N/A |
| Procter & Gamble Co. | PG, -0.78% | 35% | 52% | 72% | 213% | 233% |
| Store Capital Corp. | STOR, +0.75% | 34% | 44% | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Apple Inc. | AAPL, -0.13% | 32% | 102% | 119% | 870% | 9500% |
| American Express Co. | AXP, -0.31% | 26% | 92% | 44% | 304% | 242% |
| Travelers Companies Inc. | TRV, +0.01% | 24% | 34% | 74% | 277% | 507% |
| Liberty Global Plc Class C | LBTYK, +1.44% | 23% | -16% | -30% | 166% | N/A |
| United Parcel Service Inc. Class B | UPS, +0.24% | 22% | 18% | 39% | 192% | 143% |
| Axalta Coating Systems Ltd. | AXTA, -0.14% | 22% | 1% | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Liberty Global Plc Class A | LBTYA, +1.21% | 22% | -16% | -29% | 174% | 268% |
| Goldman Sachs Group Inc. | GS, +0.23% | 21% | 26% | 21% | 39% | 164% |
| Coca-Cola Co. | KO, -0.02% | 18% | 41% | 56% | 206% | 285% |
| Globe Life Inc. | TMK, +0.00% | 18% | 40% | 65% | 405% | 336% |
| Amazon.com Inc. | AMZN, -0.57% | 17% | 129% | 419% | 2032% | 4322% |
| Delta Air Lines Inc. | DAL, -0.03% | 16% | 68% | 56% | 757% | N/A |
| Phillips 66 | PSX, +0.52% | 15% | 35% | 30% | N/A | N/A |
| U.S. Bancorp | USB, +0.57% | 15% | 28% | 39% | 185% | 170% |
| JPMorgan Chase & Co. | JPM, +0.59% | 12% | 74% | 106% | 214% | 298% |
| General Motors Co. | GM, +0.49% | 11% | 31% | 29% | N/A | N/A |
| Southwest Airlines Co. | LUV, +0.04% | 11% | 46% | 67% | 544% | 276% |
| PNC Financial Services Group Inc. | PNC, +0.49% | 11% | 57% | 69% | 267% | 249% |
| Liberty Media Corp. Series C Liberty SiriusXM | LSXMK, +0.15% | 10% | 24% | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Bank of America Corp | BAC, +0.66% | 10% | 79% | 81% | 64% | -16% |
| Liberty Media Corp. Series A Liberty SiriusXM | LSXMA, +0.30% | 10% | 21% | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Liberty Latin America Ltd. Class A | LILA, +1.23% | 8% | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Sirius XM Holdings Inc. | SIRI, -0.64% | 8% | 51% | 74% | 825% | 163% |
| Liberty Latin America Ltd. Class C | LILAK, +1.98% | 8% | N/A | N/A | N/A | N/A |
| Suncor Energy Inc. | SU, +0.24% | 4% | 12% | -18% | 15% | 166% |
| M&T Bank Corp. | MTB, -0.05% | 3% | 31% | 31% | 205% | 124% |
| Johnson & Johnson | JNJ, +0.09% | 2% | 17% | 43% | 189% | 242% |
| Wells Fargo & Co. | WFC, +0.82% | 2% | 3% | 3% | 115% | 137% |
| United Airlines Holdings Inc. | UAL, -0.45% | -2% | 76% | 71% | 1165% | N/A |
| Bank of New York Mellon Corp. | BK, +0.81% | -11% | 7% | 16% | 71% | 78% |
| American Airlines Group Inc. | AAL, -0.04% | -20% | -28% | -32% | N/A | N/A |
| Kraft Heinz Co. | KHC, +0.75% | -39% | -68% | -36% | N/A | N/A |
| Teva Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd. ADR | TEVA, -1.00% | -55% | -86% | -86% | -84% | -70% |
| Sources: Berkshire Hathaway filing, FactSet | ||||||
Has Buffett lost his touch?
Shares of Berkshire Hathaway are down 2% this year through Aug. 28, compared to a 17% total return for the S&P 500. Berkshire’s 15-year total return has lagged the S&P 500 SPX, +0.06% slightly:
FactSet But check out this 20-year chart:
FactSet That is remarkable outperformance.
During Berkshire’s annual meeting in May, when asked if he would recommend investors buy shares of the company or invest in the S&P 500, Buffett said: “I think the financial result would be very close to the same.”
Then again, Buffet, through Berkshire’s tremendous hoard of cash ($119 billion in cash and short-term investments in short-term U.S. Treasury notes as of June 30), has tremendous power to scoop up bargains if the stock market falls. He displayed this power through his preferred-stock investments in Bank of America and Goldman Sachs during the financial crisis. These turned out to be extremely lucrative when the preferred shares were converted to common shares.
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