Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett helped turn the investment conglomerate into one of the world’s most valuable companies. With a market capitalization of approximately $1.08 trillion as of this writing, Berkshire ranks as the world’s 11th-biggest business (at the time of this writing).

Given Berkshire’s incredible success, it’s little wonder that many investors pay close attention to the company’s stock holdings and strategies. Read on to see why two Motley Fool contributors think that these Berkshire Hathaway portfolio components stand out as great buys right now.

One of Buffett’s favorites

Jennifer Saibil (Apple): Warren Buffett has been selling Apple (AAPL 0.28%) stock left and right, so I might be going against the grain to say that Apple is one of his best stocks to buy today. But Buffett himself is a contrarian investor, so I’m only following in his footsteps.

In any case, Apple is still the largest stock in the portfolio, accounting for more than a fifth of the total, so Buffett hasn’t lost confidence in it at all. He has said he would never sell as long as he’s controlling Berkshire Hathaway, but that time is coming to an end, and investors are already speculating as to whether Greg Abel will keep it in the portfolio.

But many of the same reasons Buffett originally bought it still hold today. Apple has a large and differentiated consumer products business with a sticky ecosystem, and loyal fans purchase an assortment of its devices, which easily connect to each other. Although it’s often labeled as a tech business, which isn’t in Buffett’s wheelhouse, it’s at least as much the kind of consumer products business that he loves. The tech part also gives him exposure to artificial intelligence (AI), which may not be the reason he bought it, but is a reason many other investors might find it exciting.

So far, Apple Intelligence has disappointed investors. Apple hasn’t released AI services that stand out, and it doesn’t have a strong timeline for when it will.

Still, the recent debut of its newest iPhone, the iPhone Air, demonstrates why fans love Apple and rush to buy its latest launches. It’s the thinnest smartphone on the market, and the design appeals to style-conscious users who often wear their devices as statement pieces. Apple just debuted several new launches that will go on sale later this month, including the new iPhone17 that ramps up the quality and capabilities users love and pay up for, and new AirPods that use Apple Intelligence to translate language in real time.

In other words, Apple is still on top of its game, and it isn’t likely that its customers are going anywhere else anytime soon. However, Apple stock fell after the new products were announced, and it’s down 10% this year. The market didn’t seem to think its launches had enough innovation, especially with AI. That makes this a great opportunity to buy on the dip for the long-term investor.

Amazon stock still looks like a great long-term play

Keith Noonan (Amazon): Like Apple, Amazon (AMZN -1.34%) stock has been a high-profile tech-sector underperformer in 2025. The e-commerce and cloud computing giant’s share price is up just 2% across this year’s trading. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 index’s level has risen roughly 15%, and the Nasdaq Composite‘s level has surged approximately 18%.

Also like Apple, Amazon is also part of Berkshire Hathaway’s stock portfolio. Coming in at just 0.7% of Berkshire’s public stock holdings, Amazon occupies a relatively small position in the investment conglomerate’s portfolio — but I think the tech leader stands out as a strong long-term investment at today’s prices.

Trading at roughly 33.5 times this year’s expected earnings, Amazon admittedly still has a growth-dependent valuation. On the other hand, the extent to which the stock has underperformed the broader market in recent years points to an opportunity. For reference, the company’s share price has risen just 43% over the last five years. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq Composite have both more than doubled across that stretch.

There are some good reasons behind the underperformance. For starters, the company’s e-commerce business faced some substantial headwinds from supply chain disruptions and inflationary trends connected to the pandemic. With the majority of the company’s sales still coming from its e-commerce business, Amazon is also facing some pressures from tariffs.

On the other hand, Amazon remains one of the world’s strongest businesses — and it’s likely in the early stages of capitalizing on AI-related tailwinds that power incredible new growth phases. The growth catalysts that AI can present for the company’s cloud-infrastructure services business seem to be acknowledged but still broadly underappreciated. Meanwhile, the market seems to be largely overlooking the transformative impact that AI and robotics will have on margins for its e-commerce business. With Amazon positioned to benefit from powerful tech trends, the stock looks like a smart buy while it’s still a market laggard.

Jennifer Saibil has positions in Apple. Keith Noonan has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Amazon, Apple, and Berkshire Hathaway. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

If you’re ever in need of a new stock pick, you can always borrow an idea or two from Berkshire Hathaway‘s (BRK.A 0.55%) (BRK.B 1.06%) portfolio of holdings hand-picked by Warren Buffett himself. And you should. Given enough time, Berkshire shares consistently outperform the broad market largely due to the conglomerate’s investments in publicly traded companies.

Not every Berkshire Hathaway holding is always a great buy, however. Sometimes they’re trading at too steep of a valuation for newcomers, and other times, they’ve just turned into clunkers.

With that as the backdrop, here’s a closer look at two Warren Buffett stocks you can feel good about buying today, but one name you might want to avoid until something big changes for the better.

Buy: American Express

Many investors don’t realize that — through the attrition of other holdings as well as its own growth — credit card outfit American Express (AXP 0.55%) is now Berkshire Hathaway’s second-biggest stock holding, accounting for 17% of the outfit’s portfolio of publicly traded equities. Underscoring this bullishness is the fact that Berkshire also holds stakes in Visa and Mastercard, but has chosen to only hold much smaller positions in both.

Then again, it’s not difficult to see what the Oracle of Omaha has seen in AmEx since first establishing the position back in the 1990s. It’s not just a payment middleman like the aforementioned Mastercard and Visa. It operates an entire consumerism ecosystem, serving as the card issuer as well as the payment processor, while also managing a perks and rewards program that’s attractive enough for some members to pay up to $900 per year to hold the plastic. These perks include credit toward hotel stays and ride-hailing, cash back on grocery purchases, and discounted entertainment, just to name a few. Although some have tried, no rival has been able to successfully replicate this offering.

Of course, it’s worth pointing out that American Express’s cardholders tend to be a bit more affluent than average, and are therefore mostly unfazed by economic soft patches. As CEO Stephen Squeri pointed out of its Q2 numbers despite the turbulent economic backdrop at the time, “Our second-quarter results continued the strong momentum we have seen in our business over the last several quarters, with revenues growing 9 percent year-over-year to reach a record $17.9 billion, and adjusted EPS rising 17 percent.”

Buy: Kroger

It’s not a major Berkshire holding, and certainly not one that’s talked about much by Buffett (or anyone else, for that matter). But Kroger (KR -0.08%) is quietly one of Berkshire Hathaway’s best-performing stocks.

You know the company. With 2,731 stores producing annual sales on the order of $150 billion, Kroger is one of the country’s biggest grocery chains. Oh, it doesn’t grow very quickly, or produce a ton of profit; this year’s expected top-line growth of around 3% is only likely to lead to operating income of a little less than $5 billion. That’s just the nature of the well-saturated, low-margin food business.

What Kroger lacks in growth firepower, however, it makes up for in surprising consistency.

Although the volatile food business doesn’t exactly lend itself to it, not only has this company not failed to produce a meaningful full-year profit every year for over a decade now, but has roughly doubled its bottom line during this stretch. Making a point of remaining relevant by doing things like entering the e-commerce realm has helped a lot.

More important to would-be investors, although the grocer’s reported growth doesn’t seem all that impressive, the company’s found other ways to create considerable shareholder value. Its quarterly dividend payment has grown by a hefty 250% over the course of the past decade, for example, boosted by stock buybacks that have roughly halved the number of outstanding Kroger shares. In fact, reinvesting Kroger’s dividends in more shares of the increasingly scarce stock over the course of the past 30 years would have consistently outperformed an investment in the S&P 500 during this stretch.

Avoid: UnitedHealth Group

Finally, while Buffett was willing to dive into a small position in beleaguered health insurer UnitedHealth Group (UNH -0.37%) a few weeks back, you might not want to do the same just yet…if ever.

But first things first.

Yes, there’s some drama here. UnitedHealth shares have been beaten down since April, starting with a surprise shortfall of its first-quarter earnings estimates, followed by then-CEO Andrew Witty’s abrupt resignation for “personal reasons” in May. Then in July, the company confirmed that the U.S. Department of Justice was investing its Medicare billing practices. Its second-quarter earnings posted later that same month also missed analysts’ estimates due to the same high reimbursement costs that plagued its first-quarter results. All told, from peak to trough, UNH stock fell 60% in the middle of this year.

As Buffett himself has said, of course, you should be fearful when others are greedy, and greedy when others are fearful. Taking his own advice, he recently plowed into a stake in a long-established company that’s likely to be capable of overcoming all of its current woes. Berkshire now owns 5 million shares of UNH that are currently worth a little less than $2 billion.

Except, maybe this is one of those times you don’t follow Buffett’s lead, recognizing that UnitedHealth Group — along with the entire healthcare industry — seems to be running into these regulatory and pricing headwinds more and more regularly. UnitedHealth’s Medicare business ran into similar legal trouble back in 2017, for instance, while its pharmacy benefits management arm OptumRX was sued by the Federal Trade Commission just last year for artificially inflating insulin prices. It would also be naïve to not notice the federal government is increasingly scrutinizing every aspect of the nation’s healthcare industry, now that care costs have raced beyond reasonable affordability.

And for what it’s worth, although UnitedHealth has managed to continue growing its top line every year for over a decade now, actual operating profits and EBITDA stopped growing early last year, not counting the recent unexpected surges in its medical care costs.

UNH Revenue (TTM) data by YCharts

What gives? The entire healthcare industry may be at a tipping point, so to speak, and not in a good way. Although this wouldn’t necessarily be catastrophic for UnitedHealth, it certainly would undermine its value to investors. If nothing else, you might want to wait on the sidelines for the proverbial dust to settle before following Buffett into this uncertain trade.

Warren Buffett will step down from his role as the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway at the end of the year. Although his legendary decade-long tenure is coming to an end, investors can still learn a great deal by studying the man’s investing philosophy and examining the conglomerate’s famous portfolio, which contains many excellent buy-and-hold options.

Two of the top picks among Berkshire Hathaway’s 41 holdings are Amazon (AMZN 0.23%) and Visa (V 1.19%). These market leaders have the potential to deliver superior returns over the next decade.

Here is why.

1. Amazon

Amazon is a highly profitable company with U.S. and international operations in e-commerce, grocery shopping, video and music streaming, advertising, and cloud computing. However, outside of its cloud operations, the company’s business is relatively low-margin.

In the second quarter, Amazon’s North America and international segments had operating margins of 7.5% and 4.1%, respectively. Here’s the good news: In the next decade, e-commerce should continue expanding internationally, granting significant growth prospects to these parts of Amazon’s business.

In the meantime, the company will seek to improve its margins by implementing artificial intelligence (AI) initiatives across its operations. The company has deployed more than a million industrial robots in its warehouses to that end. Amazon’s North America and international segments generate hundreds of billions of dollars in annual revenue. Even modest margin improvements annually over the long run could have a meaningful impact on the company’s bottom line.

Then there is Amazon’s fast-growing cloud unit. It is responsible for most of the company’s operating and net income, thanks to its much juicier margins. With a suite of AI services whose demand continues to grow, Amazon Web Services should maintain this momentum for the foreseeable future. Lastly, some of Amazon’s newer initiatives are expected to make a meaningful impact in the next decade as well.

Consider the company’s Amazon Pharmacy. The U.S. prescription drug market is expected to be worth approximately $374 billion in revenue this year. Amazon boasts 180 million Prime members in the U.S. and offers a range of perks, including fast and free shipping, allowing patients to avoid the long lines at pharmacies. If the company can scale this business and the rest of its healthcare operations, it could have a meaningful impact on its results by 2035.

Even without that, though, Amazon’s prospects for the next decade look highly attractive. Investors can safely add shares of the e-commerce specialist and hold onto them for a long time.

2. Visa

Visa owns one of the world’s leading global payment networks. The company facilitates credit and debit card transactions, earning a fee for each. So, every time anyone swipes or taps a card branded with Visa’s logo, the company pockets a percentage of the transaction amount. That’s quite the business model.

To get an idea of the scale of Visa’s business, consider that there are about 5 billion of its branded cards in circulation across some 200 countries, and the company supports hundreds of billions of transactions annually and trillions in total payment volume.

The result: Visa generates consistent revenue and profits, and it has for the past decade. The company also boasts a high-margin business. Visa’s network infrastructure is already in place and can support its transaction volume with minimal additional cost.

The financial specialist also avoids the headaches associated with credit risk, as it does not issue the credit card itself. This also means it doesn’t receive money from interest. Still, Visa’s fee-based, capital-light model yields gross and net margins of around 80% and 50%, respectively, which is exceptional for a company of its size.

Although Visa has already achieved tremendous success, there is still plenty of room to grow, as the world increasingly requires digital (non-cash or check) methods of payment. Besides the fact that cash is clunky and less convenient to carry in high amounts than a credit card, the growth of e-commerce is also playing a role in this, since cash is an option in physical retail stores, but digital methods of payment are practically mandatory on e-commerce platforms.

Visa still estimates there’s trillions worth of cash and check transactions to bring into its ecosystem. The company should ride that wave in the next decade and deliver excellent returns along the way.

Prosper Junior Bakiny has positions in Amazon and Berkshire Hathaway. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Amazon, Berkshire Hathaway, and Visa. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

For decades, UnitedHealth Group (UNH 0.47%) could do no wrong. The company raised its dividend by an exceptional 7,266% from 2010 to 2025, while shares rose as much as 1,700% during this run.

But shares have fallen roughly 40% year to date as the company faces a host of problems, from the murder of Brian Thompson, CEO of major business segment UnitedHealthcare, to federal investigations into allegedly fraudulent Medicare billing practices.

Nonetheless, shares surged 12% on Aug. 14 after filings revealed Berkshire Hathaway had bought over 5 million shares.

Berkshire’s move was seen as a major vote of confidence in the stock — and investors joined a stampede to follow Warren Buffett into the trade. Should you?

Big growth potential for all segments

UnitedHealth operates through four segments. Its UnitedHealthcare segment provides consumer-oriented health benefit plans and services for employers. Optum Health provides healthcare management and financial services, while Optum Insight offers data analysis tools, consulting, and tech solutions to healthcare providers. Optum Rx is a direct-to-consumer platform offering pharmacy services and 190 million prescriptions per year to U.S. homes.

In its second-quarter report on July 29, the company reported quarterly revenue of $111.6 billion, up roughly 13% from the year-ago period. The trouble is with margins. For UnitedHealthcare, the biggest segment, operating margin fell from 6.2% in Q1 2025 to 2.4% last quarter. Combined, margin for the three Optum segments fell from 6.1% in Q1 2025 to 4.6% in Q2.

These declines are steep enough that, even with revenue on the upswing, earnings fell from $9.1 billion in Q1 2025 to $5.2 billion last quarter.

Rising medical costs are the chief headwind. In the July earnings report, new CEO Stephen Hensley acknowledged that UNH “significantly underestimated the accelerating medical trend,” and medical costs totaled $6.5 billion more than anticipated.

But management is under no such illusions now. They’re taking actions to boost efficiency and cut waste, from stepping up audits of clinical policy and payment integrity tools, to scaling artificial intelligence (AI) efforts to improve provider and patient experiences while driving down costs. Implementation of AI technologies is part of initiatives the company hopes can deliver almost $1 billion in cost reductions. Perhaps most significantly, the company is raising premiums after saying it underpriced Medicare Advantage plans in 2025.

In the meantime, each of these segments could grow significantly in the years ahead. UnitedHealthcare Employer & Individual just rolled out services in its 30th state, while Optum Rx’s growth outlook is 5%-8% annually. Optum Insight is targeting operating margin of 18%-22%, while the 4.7 million patients receiving value-based care from OptumHealth represent only a fraction of the nearly 340 million Americans who could fall under its 100-plus health plans.

It’s not just Berkshire buying

Berkshire Hathaway’s move in UnitedHealth is getting headlines. But billionaire David Tepper also scooped up 2.3 million shares, while Michael Burry of The Big Short fame bought 350,000 call options on the stock in a bet that shares would rise.

In addition, BlackRock, the world’s biggest asset manager, bought over 1 million shares last quarter. Goldman Sachs bought over 1.1 million shares, while Renaissance Technologies (the fabled fund that achieved an average annual return of 66% for decades) bought over 1.35 million.

As for management, Stephen Hensley invested $25 million just days after becoming CEO, while the company’s CFO bought another $5 million worth in shares. All told, the insider buying of UNH stock outweighed insider selling by a nearly 4:1 margin last quarter.

As the investing legend Peter Lynch observed, insiders can sell for many reasons unrelated to a stock. But they buy for only one: They think shares will go up.

Why UnitedHealth is a buy for retail investors, too

Berkshire officials haven’t commented publicly on their rationale for buying UnitedHealthcare, but it’s possible to speculate on their reasons.

Warren Buffett has called cash flow the most important metric in assessing a business’s potential. In a 2000 letter to shareholders, he wrote that dividend yield, the price-to-earnings ratio, book value, and even growth rates “have nothing to do with valuation except to the extent they provide clues to the amount and timing of cash flows into and from the business.”

Positive cash flow shows the company can cover its obligations, return money to shareholders, and potentially pursue growth and expansion. After floundering in 2024, UnitedHealth’s trailing-12-month operating cash flow has rebounded to $29 billion compared to $24.2 billion at the end of last year.

And if price-to-earnings, dividend yield, and growth rates are only background clues to cash flow, these metrics seem to bode well for UnitedHealth, too.

The company’s price-to-earnings ratio of 13.7 is cheap compared to the S&P 500,
with its average P/E ratio of around 26, while revenue growth of 13% year over year further fuels the bull case. Meanwhile, the company’s recent 5.2% dividend increase — its 15th consecutive annual payout hike — brings its yield to 2.8% as I write this, nearly triple the S&P 500 average.

For investors willing to take a long-term approach and be rewarded with rising income in the meantime, UnitedHealth is a buy.

Warren Buffett’s incredible track record allocating capital for Berkshire Hathaway makes him a legend. For the average investor, following the conglomerate’s portfolio to find potential ideas is a smart use of time.

In Berkshire’s massive $277 billion portfolio, one well-known consumer brand is currently the third-largest position. There’s no doubt that investors are familiar with this business, as it’s been around for over a century.

If you invest $1,000 in this top dividend stock, could you become a millionaire one day?

Generating sizable income for Berkshire

Berkshire has a stake in numerous companies. However, it owns a whopping 400 million shares in Coca-Cola (KO -0.04%), giving it control of 9.3% of the beverage giant. Berkshire has been a shareholder for decades, which highlights Buffett’s appreciation of Coca-Cola.

Coca-Cola currently pays a quarterly dividend of $0.51 that yields 2.84% on a yearly basis. The business deserves a lot of credit for raising the payout for an unbelievable 63 straight years, a track record that investors will probably struggle to find anywhere else. This demonstrates the company’s staying power.

This position generates a huge income stream for Buffett. Berkshire rakes in $816 million in annualized income from its stake in Coca-Cola. It’s no wonder shares aren’t being sold.

Coca-Cola is a high-quality business

It’s easy to understand why Buffett likes Coca-Cola’s business. For starters, it has one of the world’s most recognizable brands. Coca-Cola has a successful history of providing consumers with consistent products that satisfy their thirst. Add to this effective marketing, a truly global footprint with a presence in more than 200 countries, and 2.2 billion servings consumed daily, and it’s obvious that Coca-Cola’s high visibility is a key part of its success.

What’s more, the brand supports ongoing pricing power, a trait Buffett loves. Just in the latest quarter (Q1 2025, ended March 28), the company’s sales benefited from a 5% impact from favorable pricing and mix. The fact that customers are loyal to the brand means that Coca-Cola can likely continue to increase prices within reason and not deal with tapering demand.

Coca-Cola is also an extremely profitable enterprise. The company relies on third-party bottlers and distributors to get its products to consumers. This results in a more efficient operating model that helped drive a 32.9% operating margin in Q1.

Another important characteristic that Coca-Cola has that long-term investors should appreciate is its longevity. It seems that the economy is undergoing rapid change these days, thanks to the continuing impact of technology. Coca-Cola simply doesn’t invite much in the way of disruption, which means its profits and dividend payouts face minimal threats. This reduces risk.

What investors should expect

In the past 10 years, Coca-Cola has produced a total return of only 137%. This figure includes dividends. That performance is worse than the three stock market indexes, which is discouraging for investors looking to amass serious wealth.

Since the business is so mature with muted growth prospects, it’s a good idea to temper expectations. The share price isn’t going to skyrocket in the years ahead.

The valuation also isn’t cheap. As of this writing, the stock trades at a price-to-earnings ratio of 28.8, above its trailing-five-year average.

The lack of substantial growth prospects, coupled with the elevated valuation, means Coca-Cola won’t turn you into a millionaire. But dividend investors might still be interested in adding the stock to their portfolios.

Neil Patel has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Berkshire Hathaway. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.