Here are two snapshots of the portfolio Warren Buffett has put together for Berkshire Hathaway (BRK-A / BRK-B). Buffett has a long history of making good deals, however his history is also that he can be out of favor as he was in 2009 and in 1999.
For example, in 2009, Berkshire lagged the index by nearly 21%. That was not the worst year though. That distinction belongs to 1999, a year in which Berkshire fell by about as much as the index gained. Berkshire was down by approximately 20% while the S&P 500 gained almost 20%. That was a tough comparison.
Despite the down years, Berkshire has done well. I thought it would be useful to look at Berkshire’s portfolio via these two tables. The first shows Berkshires’s sector weightings:
Source: Bespoke Investment Group
Obviously, the big sectors are Financials and Consumer Staples, which together comprise nearly 90% of the portfolio.
The next table shows individual stock holdings at the end of 2010. These are stock positions held by Berkshire. This does not include wholly-owned companies Berkshire owns such as See’s Candies.:
Source: Bespoke Investment Group
One interesting point is that Berkshire has quite a few small holdings and a few very large ones. The top 10 positions represent 93.5% of the portfolio.
Buffett’s style of investing
To participate in Warren Buffett’s style of investing, you have more options today than at any time I can remember. You could pick stocks yourself by following Buffett’s portfolio and his principles. If you do not want to do that, you could buy Berkshire Hathaway shares (BRK-A / BRK-B) directly. Two other avenues would be to invest in a mutual fund that owns lots of Berkshire and Berkshire-type stocks. Or, you could buy shares in mutual funds that seek to emulate Buffett’s style of investing. So, there are plenty of ways to go.
In terms of mutual funds, Sequoia Fund (SEQUX) certainly has been investing in Berkshire Hathaway longer than any other fund of which I know. If you are not familiar with the fund, it follows Warren Buffett's investment style and strategies as closely as any mutual fund does. For more on the fund's history and investment strategy, you can go here to its web site. Unlike most mutual fund web sites, it is not very marketing-oriented.
DISCLOSURE: Kurt Brouwer owns Berkshire Hathaway (BRK-B)
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You only at companies where BRK has partial ownership. 100% ownership of Midamerican is also investing in utilities. 80% ownership of ISCAR is Industrials. 100% ownership of BNSF is bigger than KO, AXP, WFC, P&G and KFT combined.
Finally the smaller positions are held in GEICO, which was managed by Lou Simpson not Buffett. They are probably being managed by Todd Combs now.
Ameya — You are correct. This table only covers publicly-traded holdings, not those Berkshire owns outright.
(It’s nice to) Note that Sequoia has reduced the initial investment to $5,000. Way back when (if I remember correctly) the intial amount was $25,000, which was a bit stiff for me back in the mid 70′s when I was first starting out.
Ready for this? Sequoia had total assets in 1977 of only 16.6 MILLION dollars.
Why dont you redo the allocation with the wholly owned Berkshire Co. Thanks
Kurt Brouwer is a fee-only financial advisor with three decades of experience. He is the chairman and co-founder of Brouwer & Janachowski, LLC. Kurt has written books, articles and hundreds of blog posts on mutual funds, ETFs and other investment topics. E-mail: kurt.brouwer *at* gmail.com.
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