The market value of Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway hit $1 trillion for the first time on Wednesday, as the conglomerate became the first non-technology company in the U.S. to reach that threshold.
Buffett’s firm joined six other firms in the exclusive $1 trillion market cap club, including Apple, Nvidia, Microsoft, Google parent Alphabet, Amazon and Facebook parent Meta.
Berkshire Hathaway has outpaced the benchmark S&P 500 index so far this year, as the company’s stock has increased over 28% compared to the index’s 18.5% rise.
The milestone comes as the latest signal of the market’s long-term confidence in Buffett’s leadership. Buffett, who turns 94 on Aug. 30, has led the firm since 1965 and the company’s shares have gained over 5,600,000% since he took the helm. That amounts to annual returns of about 20%, nearly double the S&P 500’s annualized gain with dividends.
BUFFETT’S BERKSHIRE CUTS APPLE STAKE BY HALF, BOOSTS CASH STOCKPILE TO $277B AS IT GETS ‘DEFENSIVE’
Berkshire’s portfolio includes dozens of businesses across the energy, insurance, manufacturing, retail and service sectors, which collectively generated $22.8 billion in profit during the first half of this year.
| Ticker | Security | Last | Change | Change % |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| BRK.B | BERKSHIRE HATHAWAY INC. | 464.49 | +3.98 | +0.86% |
Among the businesses it controls are Geico car insurance, the BNSF railroad, Brooks running shoes, fast-food chain Dairy Queen, Ginsu knives and the World Book encyclopedia, among others.
Berkshire also holds a large portfolio of stock and bond investments.
BUFFETT’S BERKSHIRE CURRENTLY HOLDING MORE SHORT-TERM US TREASURY BILLS THAN THE FEDERAL RESERVE
Though the company reduced its stake in Apple by half, it remains its largest stock holding by far with 400 million shares worth $84.2 billion as of June 30.Â
Buffett also trimmed his stake in Berkshire’s second-largest holding, Bank of America, to about $35.85 billion following the sale of $982 million in shares in recent days that brought its drawdown to about $5.4 billion since mid-July.
As of its most recent earnings report, Berkshire Hathaway’s holdings of short-term Treasury bills reached a massive $234 billion — an amount that surpassed the $195 billion in T-bills held on the Federal Reserve’s balance sheet.
Buffett, whose fortune was about $144.9 billion as of Tuesday and made him the sixth-richest person in the world, according to Forbes, still owns more than 14% of Berkshire Hathaway despite having donated more than half his shares to charity since 2006.
Reuters contributed to this report.
Read the full article here
