5 of the Best Stocks Warren Buffett Has Ever Purchased
Written by
Nicholas Morine
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Molly Sullivan
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While Warren Buffett may have retired from his post as CEO of Berkshire Hathaway as 2025 drew to a close, he remains chairman of the board — and one of the most influential and well-known investors of all time.
When it comes to Buffett’s stock picks, on the whole regarded as being conducted with uncanny foresight (earning him the nickname “The Oracle of Omaha”), a few stand out as particularly prescient. Here’s a list of the former Berkshire CEO’s best stock purchases.
Berkshire Makes a Mint on Apple Stock, but May Have Sold Too Early
Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway purchased around 1 billion shares of tech giant Apple between the years of 2016 and 2018 at an average price of ~$35 per share. Selling most of its shares in Q2 2024, after having unloaded another bundle in 2023, the multinational holding company saw a pretax gain of about $90 billion in 2024, as well as a further $6 billion in 2025.
However, with Apple having hit an all-time high stock price in late 2025, more than $50 billion of further gains were left on the table.
Coca-Cola Has Been a Longstanding Winner for Buffett and Company
Historically a Buffett favorite stock pick, Coca-Cola has delivered massive dividends (literally and figurative) for Berkshire Hathaway. Beginning in 1988, and investing until the early 1990s to the tune of ~$1.3 billion, Buffett’s Berkshire held (and holds) about 400 million shares of the world-famous food and beverage company.
Dividends pay out a massive $816 million per year as of mid-2025, and the valuation of the stock holdings themselves come out to a whopping $31.47 billion. Not a bad return on investment!
An Early EV Play Into China’s BYD Gets Trimmed
The Oracle of Omaha may have been on to something as Berkshire Hathaway dropped approximately $230 million into a 10% stake of Chinese EV automaker BYD nearly 20 years ago, in 2008.
The selloff began in earnest in 2022, as BYD stock hit a peak valuation that summer. And although Berkshire did end up making a huge return of more than 20 times its initial buy-in after trimming its position back, it exited its position fully as 2025 drew to a close.
Other very profitable Warren Buffett stock buys include:
- American Express: Invested $300 million in 1991, worth more than 81x this amount if figuring in reinvested dividends. Share appreciation alone drove value up more than 40x.
- GEICO: Now a wholly owned subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway after an initial purchase of a significant stake, this insurance business has returned its initial investment multiple times over, while remaining a strong contender in its own market.
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