Greg Abel Has 60% of Berkshire Hathaway's $320 Billion Stock Portfolio Invested in Just 9 Core Holdings
Greg Abel Has 60% of Berkshire Hathaway's $320 Billion Stock Portfolio Invested in Just 9 Core Holdings
Adam Levy, The Motley FoolSun, April 12, 2026 at 5:25 AM UTC
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Key Points -
Abel highlighted nine "core positions" in Berkshire's portfolio in his first letter to shareholders.
Every company on the list is a wonderful business with strong operations and wide moats.
Only some of them trade for very attractive valuations right now.
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Greg Abel is going to be a very different Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRKA) (NYSE: BRKB) CEO than Warren Buffett. Abel has a proven track record in operational management and striking strategic deals, but he's untested when it comes to portfolio management. While Berkshire has a broad portfolio of operating businesses, the company's marketable equity portfolio and liquid assets absolutely dwarf them.
Abel's strategy as head of Berkshire is to establish core positions that will anchor the portfolio. Luckily, he's taking control from one of the best investors of all time, and that guy's still sticking around as a sounding board for Abel. In the new CEO's first letter to shareholders, he outlined nine core positions for Berkshire Hathaway, and they currently combine to account for roughly 60% of the $320 billion portfolio's value.
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A person holding a smartphone displaying a brokerage app with Berkshire Hathaway's stock pulled up.
Image source: Getty Images.
1. Apple (18.5% of marketable equities)
Berkshire's stake in Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL) was once worth as much as every other marketable equity position in the portfolio combined. But Buffett started selling shares of the iPhone maker in late 2023 and continued to do so through the end of his tenure in 2025. Abel's comments in his shareholder letter suggest that selling might be over, indicating very little activity in Berkshire's core positions going forward.
"I'm very happy to have it be our largest holding," Buffett said in a recent CNBC interview. He noted that Berkshire could end up readding to its position. "It's not impossible that Apple would get to a price, we would buy a lot of it," he said.
Apple saw strong iPhone sales growth last quarter, particularly in Greater China. That momentum could continue throughout 2026, as it's set to release a long-awaited Siri revamp. That could drive a major upgrade cycle, as older phones aren't capable of running advanced AI features.
With the stock trading for roughly 31 times forward earnings, it trades around fair value, but not a great value. There's still execution risk for the business as it seeks to execute its asset-light AI strategy and drive higher-margin services revenue. But as it continues to generate massive amounts of cash flow, it's a wonderful business to own.
2. American Express (15%)
American Express (NYSE: AXP) has held a spot in Berkshire's portfolio for three decades, and it's changed quite a bit in that time. It primarily issued charge cards, which consumers were required to pay in full every month. But it's shifted toward extending more credit in recent years, with its lending business now contributing a significant amount of its growth.
Discount revenue, the fees Amex receives from every card swipe, still accounts for the bulk of its revenue, but is growing more slowly than every other reporting segment. Net interest income grew 12% last year, accounting for roughly 25% of its total revenue.
Amex is also finding success in increasing its card fees. It revamped its Consumer and Business Platinum cards last year, and it's seen very strong adoption of the products despite higher annual fees. Overall, management has seen net card fee revenue climb 17% per year since 2019, and it now accounts for roughly 13% of revenue. Combined with growing scale for its payments network, Amex has exhibited strong operating leverage over the last few years.
With the stock at 18 times earnings, Amex trades for an excellent value relative to its long-term targets of greater than 10% revenue growth and mid-teens earnings-per-share growth.
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3. Coca-Cola (9.8%)
Coca-Cola's (NYSE: KO) red-and-white bottles are known the world over, and it's leveraged its strong brand and distribution capabilities to create a massive beverage portfolio. The company now sports 32 billion-dollar brands across soda, juice, water, sports drinks, coffee, and tea.
Coke's strong brand has enabled it to maintain pricing power while ensuring shelf space at grocery stores. It's also able to negotiate for preferred placement of new brands thanks to the strength of Coke. The strength of its brands and broadening portfolio also make it an attractive partner for bottlers and distributors, providing further leverage. As such, it's no surprise that Coca-Cola has been able to improve its operating margin over the years while management points out its consumer-package-goods peers are facing significant margin pressure.
Considering Coke's strong market penetration and massive share in those markets, revenue growth is slow but steady. Management expects organic revenue growth of 4% to 6% this year, translating into 7% to 9% earnings-per-share growth. Investors have consistently been willing to pay an earnings multiple in the mid-20s for the slow and predictable grower, making its current forward P/E of 24 look fair.
4. Moody's (3.4%)
Moody's (NYSE: MCO) is one of three credit rating agencies that are trusted worldwide. That trust makes its service essential for bond issuers and bond investors. If a bond issue isn't rated by Moody's (or one of its two big competitors), investors can't trust how well it compares to other bond issues without diving into the financials of the issuer (which may or may not be easily accessible). As a result, Moody's has a massive moat around its business, but growth is relatively slow.
Moody's also operates a complementary analytics business, which is growing faster and accounts for nearly half of revenue. Its recurring subscription model adds some predictability to the business. While the business currently operates at a lower margin than its credit rating operations, it's expanding margins quickly despite investing in growth through acquisitions and AI. It expects another 150-basis-point improvement in its operating margin for 2026.
Strong margin expansion and steady revenue growth should result in consistent increases in earnings per share. With the stock trading at nearly 27 times earnings expectations, it's another stock that appears to trade for fair value, but not great value.
5-9. Japanese trading houses (13.4%)
Berkshire Hathaway established positions in the five Japanese trading houses in 2019, and it's since taken opportunities to build on those holdings. It now owns 10.8% of Mitsubishi (OTC: MSBHF) (OTC: MTSUY), 10.4% of Mitsui (OTC: MITSF) (OTC: MITSY), 10.1% of Itochu (OTC: ITOCF) (OTC: ITOCY), 9.8% of Marubeni (OTC: MARUF) (OTC: MARUY), and 9.7% of Sumitomo (OTC: SSUMF) (OTC: SSUMY). Buffett received permission to expand Berkshire's stake in all five beyond 10% last year.
The five trading houses all operate in a similar manner to Berkshire, owning a broad portfolio of operating businesses and using the cash generated by those businesses to expand into new investments. At last year's Berkshire Hathaway shareholder meeting, Buffett and Abel discussed the potential to partner with any of them for new international deals, providing a panel of experts for Abel to find new opportunities to deploy Berkshire's cash.
Shares of all five have performed strongly over the last year. Shares of Mitsubishi and Sumitomo have about doubled since last April, Mitsui is up 138%, and Marubeni is up 173%. The laggard, Itochu, is still up 56% over the last 12 months. At this point, some of the stocks may have gotten ahead of themselves, but Itochu still looks attractive. While its peers are more concentrated in natural resource businesses (which have gotten a boost from the Iran war this year), it's heavily focused on simple high return on capital investments, including its 100% ownership of the FamilyMart convenience store chain.
Itochu's enterprise value-to-EBITDA ratio sits at the bottom of the group right now, and Sumitomo trades only slightly higher. Both trade well below the valuations of their peers, making them the two best options for investors interested in the Japanese trading houses.
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American Express is an advertising partner of Motley Fool Money. Adam Levy has positions in Apple. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Apple, Berkshire Hathaway, and Moody's and is short shares of Apple. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Source: “AOL Money”
