What Is Buffett Buying and Selling Now?

In Q4 of last year, Warren Buffett made a few significant changes to the Berkshire Hathaway portfolio. The investing legend sat on the sidelines through much of 2024, with most of his activity accounted for by selling stocks into a high-priced market and consolidating his company’s assets in cash.

With Buffett and his investing team seemingly jumping back into action late last year, though, it may be useful to review what Berkshire Hathaway has added and subtracted from its portfolio.

Buffett’s Recent Buys

Perhaps the most interesting buy in the most recently reported quarter was Constellation Brands (NYSE:STZ), an alcohol company that owns brands including Modelo and Corona beers and several popular wine labels.

Buffett purchased 5.6 million shares of the company valued at a little over $1.2 billion. Q4 was the first time Berkshire Hathaway invested in STZ, and the beverage company could be an attractive value play for long-term returns.

Buffett also took the opportunity last quarter to add to his holdings in some of his favorite existing positions. Berkshire Hathaway’s stake in Occidental Petroleum (NYSE:OXY) grew by about 3.4% thanks to a purchase made in mid-December.

Buffett also made a modest addition to his position in Verisign (NASDAQ:VRSN) around the same time. While both of these buys added to already attractive parts of Berkshire’s portfolio, neither of them represented an especially large change from the company’s existing holdings.

One stock Buffett has seemed quite enthusiastic about recently is Domino’s Pizza (NASDAQ:DPZ). Berkshire Hathaway started buying shares of the major pizza company last year and now has almost 2.4 million shares. Thanks to its competitive brand moat and popularity among consumers, Domino’s is the kind of business that Buffett can add to the portfolio even at relatively high value multiples and allow to compound over years or even decades.

Yet another newfound favorite for Buffett is SiriusXM, which he originally started buying as part of a potential merger arbitrage opportunity. That short-term investment opportunity, however, has turned into a roughly 35% stake in the company. Buying has continued well into 2025, and Berkshire may keep adding to its stake this year if prices remain attractive.

Last on the list of buys in Q4 was an expansion of Berkshire’s stake in Pool Corp(NASDAQ:POOL). The company, which distributes swimming pool supplies, now makes up $192 million of Berkshire’s portfolio. Owing to the extremely small size of this position, it’s worth noting that the stake in POOL is very likely the work of one of Buffett’s proteges. Buffett himself would be unlikely to have made such a small buying decision, as he typically likes to be able to deploy capital at larger scales.

What Is the Oracle of Omaha Selling?

Bank of America (NYSE:BAC) has been one of the top stocks on Buffett’s chopping block lately. Over 2024, Berkshire Hathaway unloaded over 350 million shares of the financial stock, paring its position down to about 680 million shares valued at $27 billion.

Although BAC still makes up over 10% of the Berkshire portfolio, the decision to sell was telling of just how aggressively Buffett pulled back to cash last year. Buffett has owned Bank of America shares off and on since 2007, and the bank has been a noted favorite of Buffett’s from a business perspective.

Another stock that Buffett is still unloading is Citigroup (NYSE:C). Unlike Bank of America, Buffett’s selling of Citigroup was quick and drastic, with Berkshire unloading nearly three-quarters of its shares in Q4. This left the company with fewer than $1 billion worth of C, which now makes up only about 0.4% of its total portfolio.

Whereas Bank of America will likely continue to have a place, albeit a smaller one, in the Berkshire portfolio, this sudden selloff of shares may indicate that the position in Citigroup could be fully unwound sooner rather than later.

Buffett may also be exploring the sale of some of Berkshire Hathaway’s non-public assets. This week, The Wall Street Journal reported that Berkshire was in talks with Compass real estate to potentially sell off its real estate brokerage business. Although the news hasn’t been confirmed by either company as of yet, the sale of a wholly-owned unit within Berkshire would be yet another example of Buffett consolidating in response to a rapidly shifting investment landscape.

The One Stock That Was Conspicuously Missing

Although Q4 saw Buffett return to moderate buying after a prolonged period of selling off large parts of the Berkshire portfolio, one stock was very obviously missing from his purchasing activity late last year. Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE:BRK.A,BRK.B) has been repurchasing its own shares steadily since 2018.

Since early 2024, however, Buffett has stopped the buybacks despite having hundreds of billions of dollars worth of cash reserves that could easily be used to repurchase his company’s own shares.

The most obvious explanation for this is that Buffett no longer believes Berkshire shares to be trading below their intrinsic value.

Last year, Berkshire Hathaway became the first non-tech company to achieve a market capitalization of over $1 trillion, and shares of the company are up over 23% in the past 12 months. As such, Buffett may not see enough of a discount in Berkshire shares to buy them back at today’s prices.

Cash Remains King at Berkshire

Despite finding opportunities to deploy some of Berkshire Hathaway’s cash, Buffett didn’t even put a dent in its stockpile.

The company ended last year with $334 billion of cash, a record even for a company that is known for favoring a large cash reserve. This reserve is currently invested in short-term Treasury instruments that generate what amounts to risk-free interest income for Berkshire until it can find better ways to invest the money.

This huge cash reserve could serve Berkshire Hathaway well now that the S&P 500 has entered correction territory. Buffett has always been known for investing heavily when temporary downturns cause stocks to sell off sharply. Although the current selloff is tied to structural changes to American trade that could continue to affect the economy for many years, it is also likely to open up some opportunities for Buffett and his team to buy stocks below their intrinsic value.

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The author has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Financhill has a disclosure policy. This post may contain affiliate links or links from our sponsors.