title: "Warren Buffett's Stock Picks 2026: What Berkshire's Portfolio Reveals About Moats" description: "Analysis of Berkshire Hathaway's portfolio positions and what they reveal about economic moat investing. Buffett's biggest holdings and the logic behind them." date: "2026-02-12" category: "Portfolio Analysis" slug: "warren-buffett-stock-picks-2026-berkshire-portfolio"
Warren Buffett's Stock Picks 2026: What Berkshire's Portfolio Reveals About Moats
Berkshire Hathaway's 13-F filings are the most scrutinized documents in investing. Every quarter, thousands of investors parse the changes looking for signals about where Buffett sees value.
But copying Buffett's trades misses the point. By the time the 13-F is public (45 days after quarter-end), the stock has already moved. The real value is understanding WHY Buffett owns what he owns. The moat logic behind each position teaches more than the position itself.
The Portfolio Tells a Moat Story
Berkshire's top holdings are not a random collection of stocks. Every major position maps to a specific moat type:
Apple (AAPL): ~48% of Public Equity Portfolio
This concentration is extreme even by Buffett's standards. Roughly half of Berkshire's $365+ billion public equity portfolio sits in a single stock.
The moat logic: Apple combines three moat types simultaneously: - Ecosystem switching costs: iCloud, iMessage, App Store purchases lock in customers - Brand premium: $899 average iPhone selling price vs. $295 Android average - Network effects: iMessage, AirDrop, FaceTime improve with more Apple users
Buffett has called Apple "probably the best business I know in the world." When someone who has analyzed thousands of businesses over 60 years makes that statement, the moat must be extraordinary.
The non-obvious insight: Buffett does not own Apple because he loves technology. He owns Apple because it resembles the consumer brands he has always favored (Coca-Cola, Gillette, American Express) but with stronger switching costs and higher returns on capital. Apple's 147% ROE dwarfs Coca-Cola's 40%.
See Apple's full moat analysis
Bank of America (BAC): ~12% of Portfolio
Banking moats are underappreciated. The moat comes from three sources:
Deposit relationships create switching costs. Moving checking accounts, auto-pay setups, direct deposits, and associated credit cards is tedious enough that most consumers never bother, even if a competitor offers a better rate.
Regulatory barriers limit new competition. Getting a bank charter requires years of regulatory approval, massive capital reserves, and ongoing compliance infrastructure. No startup can replicate this overnight.
Scale advantages in technology spending. Bank of America spends $12+ billion annually on technology. A regional bank spending $200 million cannot match the digital experience, which increasingly drives customer acquisition and retention.
Buffett accumulated this position at an average cost around $14 per share. The current dividend alone produces a double-digit yield on his cost basis.
Coca-Cola (KO): ~8% of Portfolio
The forever hold. Berkshire bought Coca-Cola in 1988 at roughly $3.25 per share (split-adjusted). The annual dividend is now $1.94 per share, meaning Buffett earns a 60% annual cash yield on his original investment.
The moat: brand power so deep that 94% of the world's population recognizes the Coca-Cola logo. Distribution infrastructure reaching 200+ countries built over 130+ years. A competitor would need to replicate not just the brand but the bottling partnerships, shelf space agreements, and restaurant fountain deals that took a century to build.
Buffett has said he will never sell Coca-Cola. The lesson: when a moat is truly permanent and the dividend grows every year (61 consecutive years for KO), the optimal holding period is forever.
American Express (AXP): ~6% of Portfolio
American Express operates a closed-loop payment network, meaning it is both the card issuer and the payment processor. Visa and Mastercard are open-loop (they process but do not issue cards directly).
The moat combines: - Network effects: Merchants accept AmEx because affluent consumers carry it - Brand premium: AmEx cardholders spend 3-4x more per transaction than Visa/Mastercard average - Data advantage: The closed-loop model provides transaction data that open-loop networks cannot access
Buffett's average cost is roughly $8.50 per share. The current annual dividend alone provides a 35%+ yield on cost. This is what moat investing looks like over decades.
Visa (V) and Other Payment Network Holdings
Berkshire's payment network exposure (AmEx plus historical positions in Visa and Mastercard) reflects a consistent theme: toll booth businesses that earn a fraction of every transaction flowing through the global economy.
Visa's network effect moat scores 10/10 on our framework. Operating margins above 65%, ROIC above 35%, growing 10% annually in what should be a mature market. These are not the economics of a competitive industry.
What Buffett's Sales Reveal
The sells are as instructive as the buys.
Airlines (Sold 2020): Moat Destruction
Buffett sold all airline positions during the COVID pandemic, taking a significant loss. His explanation at the 2020 annual meeting: "The world changed for airlines, and I don't know how it's changed."
The deeper lesson: airlines never had real moats. Buffett invested based on improved industry discipline (fewer competitors, better pricing). But the moment a crisis hit, the structural weakness (commodity service, price-sensitive customers, high fixed costs, union labor, government regulation) was exposed.
Wells Fargo (Sold 2020-2022): Moat Damage from Management
Berkshire completely exited Wells Fargo after the fake accounts scandal. The business had a genuine moat (deposit relationships, brand, scale), but management destroyed customer trust through fraudulent practices.
The lesson aligns with Buffett's own principle: "When a management with a reputation for brilliance tackles a business with a reputation for bad economics, it is the reputation of the business that remains intact." The reverse is also true: even great economics cannot survive terrible management.
Buffett's Evolution: From Cigar Butts to Moats
Tracking Berkshire's portfolio over decades reveals a clear evolution:
1960s-1970s: Cheap stocks with no moats (textile mills, department stores). Buffett bought statistically cheap businesses and extracted remaining value.
1980s-1990s: Consumer brand moats (Coca-Cola, Gillette, American Express). Charlie Munger convinced Buffett that paying fair prices for wonderful businesses beat buying cigar butts.
2010s-2020s: Technology platform moats (Apple, eventually Microsoft-type positions). Buffett recognized that software and platform companies can build moats as durable as consumer brands, sometimes more so.
The through-line: each evolution moved toward businesses with stronger, more durable moats. Buffett's biggest regret is not the losses; it is the missed moat investments. He has publicly lamented not buying Google and Amazon when the moats were visible and the prices were reasonable.
How to Apply Buffett's Framework
Copying Buffett's positions is less useful than applying his principles. The framework distills to five questions:
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Does the business have a moat? If ROIC is below 15% sustained, the answer is probably no.
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Is the moat durable? Will the competitive advantage exist in 10-20 years? Apple's ecosystem moat is strengthening. Newspaper advertising moats were collapsing.
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Is management competent and honest? Wells Fargo taught this lesson painfully. Look for insider ownership, conservative capital allocation, and a track record of rational decisions.
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Is the price reasonable? Even Buffett overpays sometimes (he acknowledges paying too much for Kraft Heinz). A wonderful business at an absurd price is still a bad investment.
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Can it be held for a decade? If the answer is uncertain, the conviction is insufficient.
Buffett once summarized it even more simply: "Buy companies with strong histories of profitability and with a dominant business franchise."
The Moatifi screener applies this framework systematically, scoring 68+ companies on moat strength, management quality, and business economics. It is the analytical starting point that Buffett would build manually by reading annual reports for decades.