The Berkshire Hathaway portfolio

Why people follow this portfolio

Berkshire Hathaway is a conglomerate that runs whole businesses and also holds a portfolio of listed stocks. This list is that second part: what it reported in its latest filing.

Berkshire buys businesses, not share prices. Buffett repeated the same rule for decades. He buys a business he understands, one with an advantage that is hard to copy. He pays a price that leaves room if things go worse than expected. Then he keeps it. That is why the portfolio barely moves. Some positions have been there for over thirty years, and the quarters when he buys nothing are part of the method.

What is special about Berkshire is not only what it buys, but the money it buys with. Its insurers collect premiums today and pay claims years later. That money in transit is called float, and Berkshire invests it in the meantime. Nobody can call it back when the market falls. That is why it can buy exactly when everyone else is selling.

If you invest from Latin America, the useful part is not copying the tickers. It is the concentration: a handful of positions carry almost all the weight. An index fund never does that. Concentrating multiplies the wins and the mistakes alike, and it only works if you think in years rather than quarters.

Where this data comes from

The positions come from the 13F form Berkshire files with the SEC every quarter. That form only covers US shares it has bought. It leaves out bonds, cash, the companies Berkshire owns outright, and anything outside the United States.