Billionaire Warren Buffett Has Purchased $77 Billion of His Favorite Stock, Which Is More Than Double What He’s Spent Buying Shares of Apple!

For nearly 60 years, Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK.A)(NYSE: BRK.B) CEO Warren Buffett has been running circles around Wall Street’s major stock indexes. Since ascending to the CEO chair in the mid-1960s, he’s overseen an aggregate return of greater than 5,350,000% for Berkshire’s Class A shares (BRK.A), as of the closing bell on July 18. This works out to an annualized return or nearly 20% over six decades.

Returns of this magnitude over such a lengthy time frame are virtually unheard of, which is why the “Oracle of Omaha” garners so much attention on Wall Street. Some 40,000 people flock to Omaha, NE, each year for a chance to hear Buffett speak about the U.S. economy, his investment philosophy, and the stocks he favors.

If there’s one investing trait that’s been vital to Buffett’s success as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway, it’s portfolio concentration. Billionaire Warren Buffett and the late, great Charlie Munger have long favored putting an outsized percentage of Berkshire’s capital to work in their best ideas. As of last week, 75% of Berkshire’s $416 billion investment portfolio was invested in just five unstoppable stocks.

Yet what might come as a surprise is that Buffett’s biggest investment — $77 billion in under six years — and favorite stock to buy doesn’t show up in Berkshire’s investment portfolio.

Apple is Berkshire’s top holding, but not its largest cost basis
Despite Buffett and his team of advisors (Todd Combs and Ted Weschler) selling almost 126.2 million shares of tech stock Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) during the combined fourth quarter and first quarter, Berkshire’s top holding still accounts for more than 43% of its invested assets.

During Berkshire Hathaway’s most recent annual meeting, Buffett attributed this selling activity as being tax-related and not representative of him or his team losing faith in Apple. In fact, Buffett has previously referred to his company’s top holding as “a better business than any we own.” Perhaps it’s not surprising that the remaining 789.4 million shares of Apple owned by Berkshire have a mammoth estimated cost basis of more than $31 billion.

Although the Oracle of Omaha isn’t the biggest fan of investing in tech stocks or buzzy innovations, he does understand consumer behavior, the power of branding, and a high-quality management team when he sees one.

Apple finds itself at the top of the pecking order in domestic smartphone market share. Since introducing 5G-capable iPhones in 2020, it’s accounted for a 50% or greater share of the market. It’s also made strides in personal computing, with Mac gaining market share in the U.S. over the last three years.