Quality compounding
Buy wonderful businesses at fair prices and let time do the heavy lifting. Concentration in what you deeply understand beats diversification into what you don't — and permanent capital plus insurance float turns patience into structural advantage.
Net worth
Estimatedyearly estimates from public reporting · risk pane = rolling volatility, the standard deviation of annual growth wealth managers useThe allocation
Estimatedmodeled from public reporting — a wealth manager's sketch, not a statementLook-through of Berkshire's equity book (Apple, financials, energy)
Returns
EstimatedTracks Berkshire's book-value/market compounding
The long compounding record
Size is the anchor — half a trillion compounds slowly; cash drag until the fat pitch
Portfolio highlights
public & private — widely reported positions; weights are member-gated- Applepublic
Largest public position for years, trimmed but still core
- American Expresspublic
Held since the 1990s
- Coca-Colapublic
The famous forever holding
- Bank of Americapublic
Major financial stake, recently reduced
- Occidental Petroleumpublic
Built through the 2020s
- Chevronpublic
Core energy position
- Japanese trading housespublic
Mitsubishi, Mitsui, Itochu, Marubeni, Sumitomo
- BNSF Railwayprivate
Wholly owned railroad
- GEICOprivate
Wholly owned insurer — the float machine
- US Treasury billsfund
The record cash pile
Private allocations
best public information — stakes and terms mostly undisclosedWholly owned since 2010 — rail exposure at national scale
The float machine funding the portfolio
Utilities and renewables, regulated returns
Truck-stop network, bought in stages
The pillars
- Circle of competence — only swing at pitches you understand
- Durable moats over cheap statistics
- Hold periods measured in decades
- Float and permanent capital as leverage without margin calls
Signature moves
- Concentrated, decades-long positions in consumer franchises and financials
- Using insurance float to fund the portfolio
- Sitting in cash for years until the fat pitch arrives
The tax playbook
Editorialstrategies widely reported around Buffett — never tax adviceNever sell, never realize
Berkshire has paid no dividend since 1967 and he almost never sells — gains compound for decades untaxed until realization.
Charitable giving of appreciated stock
Pledged the vast majority of his BRK shares to foundations — donating appreciated stock takes a deduction while the embedded gain is never taxed.
The $100k salary
Famously minimal wage income for one of the world's richest — the fortune grows as unrealized equity, not salary.
Compiled from public reporting on structures these investors are widely reported to use. Tax outcomes depend entirely on individual circumstances — this is background reading, not tax advice.
On the wire
tracked filings & reports — live from SEC EDGAR and pressLoading the wire…
Recent moves
from public filings & press — quarter-level, not live data- SHIFTQ2 2025
Kept building a record cash position in Treasury bills, per Berkshire's quarterly filings
- MOVEMay 2025
Announced the CEO handoff to Greg Abel at the annual meeting — capital discipline unchanged
- BUY2025
Continued adding to the Japanese trading-house stakes he has called decades-long holds
Sources
Where this profile's information comes from — filings first.
This profile is an editorial summary compiled from public sources. Allocation, return, and prediction figures are MODELED ESTIMATES — informed guesses, not verified data; predictions are illustrative scenarios only. No affiliation with or endorsement by Warren Buffett is implied, and nothing on this page is investment advice.