Warren Buffett has never claimed to be a trader or a market timer. Instead, the Oracle of Omaha has built his fortune by doing a few simple things exceptionally well. These are buying high-quality businesses, making sure they have durable competitive advantages, and paying a reasonable price for them. He then holds those businesses for a very long time.
The good news is that there is a simple way to replicate the philosophy behind his approach with ASX shares.
That's where the VanEck Morningstar Wide Moat AUD ETF (ASX: MOAT) comes in.
Image source: The Motley Fool
Warren Buffett-style investing, systemised
This ASX ETF is built around a concept Buffett often talks about: economic moats.
These are competitive advantages that allow a company to defend profits against competitors over long periods of time. They can come from brand strength, switching costs, scale, regulation, or intellectual property.
The fund tracks an index that identifies companies believed to have sustainable competitive advantages and then applies a valuation filter. Importantly, this mirrors Buffett's preference for quality at a fair price, not simply buying the cheapest stocks available.
In other words, the VanEck Morningstar Wide Moat AUD ETF isn't about bargain hunting. It is about owning great businesses without overpaying.
The kind of businesses Buffett likes
Holdings change over time, but the fund consistently owns businesses that feel very Buffett-like.
Examples from the current portfolio include United Parcel Service (NYSE: UPS), a logistics giant with global scale that would be almost impossible to replicate today, Danaher (NYSE: DHR), a diversified life sciences and diagnostics company built around recurring demand and disciplined capital allocation, and Constellation Brands (NYSE: STZ), which owns premium beverage brands with strong pricing power.
There are also defensive consumer names such as Clorox (NYSE: CLX) and Mondelez International (NASDAQ: MDLZ), as well as high-quality industrial and technology companies that benefit from long-term structural demand rather than short-term hype.
These are not speculative businesses. They are companies designed to keep compounding.
The long-term results speak for themselves
Over the past 10 years, the index tracked by the VanEck Morningstar Wide Moat AUD ETF has delivered an average total return of 16.06% per annum.
To put that into perspective, a $20,000 investment made 10 years ago would now be worth roughly $90,000, assuming returns were reinvested. That is the power of compounding applied to quality businesses.
What's even more notable is that this outperformed the S&P 500 index, which returned around 15.09% per annum over the same period. That gap may not sound large in a single year, but over a decade it becomes meaningful.
It is a strong reminder that Buffett's core philosophy still works, even in a market dominated by technology and rapid change.
Foolish takeaway
Investing like Warren Buffett with ASX shares doesn't require picking individual stocks or waiting for market crashes.
By focusing on businesses with durable advantages and sensible valuations, the VanEck Morningstar Wide Moat AUD ETF offers ASX investors a straightforward way to apply Buffett's principles in a diversified, rules-based way.
As Buffett himself has shown for decades, that is often exactly the point.
