Under Warren Buffett’s leadership, Berkshire Hathaway raised its stake in Occidental Petroleum from 25.1% to 25.8%. To date, Berkshire has spent $14.5 billion for 228 million shares.
In June, at a share price of just over $57, Buffett bought 224.1 million shares of Occidental. Berkshire Hathaway made its first investments in D.R. Horton (DHI), Lennar (LEN), and NVR (NVR) in the second quarter of this year. Berkshire increased its holdings in Occidental Petroleum (OXY) while decreasing its holdings in Chevron (CVX).
Berkshire did not make any modifications to its largest stock holdings in Apple (AAPL) or Bank of America (BAC) during the second quarter. Berkshire’s portfolio is heavily weighted with Dow stocks, and Apple stock is the largest holding by market value and second largest by number of shares, behind only Bank of America.
Other major, long-held holdings of the conglomerate remained unchanged as well, including Kraft Heinz (KHC), Coca-Cola (KO), and American Express (AXP). Buffett is famous for his “buy-and-hold” investment strategy, which involves keeping equities for many years or even decades.
Coca-Cola stock, one of Buffett’s favorite companies to invest in, has increased its dividend payment for 61 consecutive years. When dividends are factored in, the widely followed Berkshire Hathaway portfolio gained 19.8% annually between 1965 and 2022, almost twice as much as the S&P 500 index.
Although Warren Buffett owns more shares of Bank of America than any other stock, Berkshire Hathaway’s portfolio values Apple higher. At the end of June 2023, the value of that holding was a staggering $177.6 billion. Berkshire’s equity portfolio is currently 51% Apple stock, up from 6% at the end of 2016.
Although Investors Business Daily’s stock-picking methodology differs from Buffett’s, the publication built a screen of stocks based on Buffett’s investment philosophy.
Many of Buffett’s holdings end up on the IBD Leaderboard or the IBD 50 ranking of the best-performing growth equities.
