Luckily for us, his stock selections are public knowledge because the investment company he runs, Berkshire Hathaway Inc (NYSE: BRK.A) (NYSE: BRK.B), is listed. So, we get regular updates on his holdings.

Here are Buffett's top 10 stocks by value, according to Berkshire Hathaway's FY22 full-year results released in February.

Top 10 stocks that Warren Buffett owns

What are the lessons for investors buying ASX 200 stocks? 

Buy large-cap ASX 200 stocks

Buffett's top 10 holdings are full of multi-billion-dollar global companies that own household-name brands.

Obviously, he's extremely positive on Apple given the almost 40% allocation of his total portfolio!

He refers to Apple as Berkshire Hathaway's "third-largest business" after its wholly-owned insurance and railroad companies. He reckons Apple is "probably the best business I know in the world".

You could also say he's in love with Bank of America, Chevron, and American Express, given they and Apple together comprise an astonishing 68% of the investment pie!

Large-cap companies are typically industry giants with large valuations (or market capitalisations). Their sheer size is a big factor enabling them to weather all types of economic conditions.

This means safety and stability for the investor.

As mature companies, their share price growth may be limited unless they are in rapidly growing and evolving industries, such as technology (like Apple), or have a global market for their products (also like Apple).

The trade-off in the limited share price growth is strong, reliable, and regular dividends. This makes them a favourite choice among income investors and those who want lower-risk investments.

Fun fact: Buffett's Coca-Cola investment returns $704 million in annual dividends.

The three biggest large-cap ASX 200 stocks available to investors are BHP Group Ltd (ASX: BHP), Commonwealth Bank of Australia (ASX: CBA), and CSL Limited (ASX: CSL). 

Buy and hold high-quality businesses for the long term

Buffett is a value investor, meaning he targets high-quality businesses and buys them when they are trading below their intrinsic worth or book value.

He also describes himself as a "business picker" rather than a "stock picker".

That means he uses fundamental analysis to get a real understanding of the companies he is considering buying, and to keep tabs on the ones he already owns. He spends most days in his office reading.

Buffett buys long, which means he's patient. He doesn't get caught up in the day-to-day price movements of his investments based on announcements with short-term share price ramifications.

Buffett's strategy means he has fun in both bear markets and bull markets. How smart is that?

Bear markets provide opportunities to buy below value, and bull markets power up those share prices.

A few examples of long-term holds within Buffett's top 10 stocks are Bank of America, which he first purchased in 2011, American Express (1964), Moody's (2000), and Coca-Cola (1988).

He bought Coca-Cola just months after the Black Monday 1987 market crash. He saw an opportunity to nab a high-quality business while the share price was down, and he went hard too — putting $1 billion into the stock. That's a big number today, let alone back in 1988!

There's also a lesson in moving with the times and adapting your investments in accordance with general business and societal trends, such as the rise of technology.

Buffett first bought Apple in 2016 and Activation Blizzard in 2021. Apple is the biggest US tech stock and Activation Blizzard is in the top 30.

The biggest ASX 200 information technology stocks are WiseTech Global Ltd (ASX: WTC) and Xero Limited (ASX: XRO). But they're babies in size compared to the big US tech stocks.

Keep cash on hand for opportunities

As we covered last month, Buffett moved US$23.3 billion (A$35 billion) from the market into cash between 30 June and 31 December 2022.

Berkshire Hathaway went into 2023 with cash, cash equivalents, and treasury securities (bonds) worth US$128.7 billion.

In his annual newsletter released in February, Buffett explained:

As for the future, Berkshire will always hold a boatload of cash and U.S. Treasury bills along with a wide array of businesses.

We will also avoid behavior that could result in any uncomfortable cash needs at inconvenient times, including financial panics and unprecedented insurance losses.

Spare cash means you can enjoy some satisfying dollar-cost averaging on ASX 200 stocks when the market is down.

Let's talk about diversification

In total, Buffett has 49 stocks in his portfolio, which sounds like a lot. But it's not when you look at the enormity of the whole pie (about US$340 billion).

In short, he's got huge sums invested in each of those 49 stocks. Using the top 10 as an example, if one of those companies goes bust, he'll lose billions. That's probably why they're all large caps. The likelihood of a large cap going under is incredibly small, so perhaps that's why Buffett feels safe to invest big.

Things look a little different when you're an ordinary investor with, say, $50,000 in ASX 200 stocks. You can't really afford to make mistakes and not having a diversified portfolio is a huge one for us.

We should point out that Buffett has good diversification across different industries.

Diversification is important because it gives you safety. The more ASX 200 stocks you hold and the more industries you are exposed to, the lesser your risk.

We don't know what is around the corner. Imagine holding a portfolio full of travel stocks in early 2020.

A quick way of ensuring you have great diversification is not to bother trying to pick ASX 200 stocks at all. Instead, take Buffett's advice and buy a low-cost S&P 500 index fund instead.

That's his key recommendation for ordinary investors looking to set themselves up for retirement.

The S&P/ASX 200 Index (ASX: XJO) closed the session yesterday at 7,362.2 points, down 0.05%.

The post Which stocks does Warren Buffett own (and what can ASX 200 investors learn from this)? appeared first on The Motley Fool Australia.

When Warren Buffett gets something right, he really gets it right. The legendary investor's stock picks through the years have helped him become one of the wealthiest people on the planet.

But much of Buffett's success has stemmed from decisions he made a long time ago. What are examples of his best picks more recently? Here are Buffett's biggest winners over the past five years -- and whether or not they can keep winning in the future.

1. Apple

In his 2021 letter to Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK.A) (NYSE: BRK.B) shareholders, Buffett wrote that the conglomerate had "four giants." Three of them were Berkshire subsidiaries: the company's insurance businesses (including Geico and General Re), railroad operator BNSF, and energy provider Berkshire Hathaway Energy. But Berkshire doesn't control one of those giants -- Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL).

Currently, Berkshire owns only a 5.8% stake in Apple. However, the tech stock ranks as Berkshire's top holding by far, representing 38.8% of the total portfolio. Buying such a huge position in Apple has proven to be one of Buffett's smartest moves ever. The stock has skyrocketed around 240% over the past five years.

It's no secret why Apple has delivered such a tremendous gain. The company's iPhone remains highly popular, especially with the shift to high-speed 5G networks. Apple's services business has also become a much bigger revenue driver in recent years.

2. Mastercard

Buffett has been a longtime fan of credit card stocks. Berkshire's portfolio includes American Express and Visa. The former ranks as Berkshire's No. 5 holding. But the biggest winner over the past five years has been Mastercard (NYSE: MA).

Mastercard's gain of more than 125% is due in part to a broad-based shift away from cash. A sharp increase in e-commerce also provided a nice boost.

Despite Mastercard's status as one of Buffett's biggest winners in recent years, it's still not one of his favorite stocks. Berkshire reduced its position in Mastercard in the fourth quarter of 2021. Mastercard now makes up only 0.4% of Berkshire's total portfolio.

3. Moody's

Buffett technically didn't decide to invest in Moody's (NYSE: MCO). Berkshire owned shares of Dun & Bradstreet in the past. It received shares of Moody's when D&B spun off the credit rating business in 2000.

While Berkshire later sold its stake in D&B, it retained a position in Moody's. That turned out to be a wise move. The stock more than doubled over the past five years and has delivered more than a 20x gain since the spin-off from D&B.

However, Buffett could have made even more money from his investment in Moody's. He sold some of the stock in 2009. The Oracle of Omaha referred to this as a "billion-dollar mistake" less than two years later.

Can they win in the future?

None of these three stocks are performing very well so far in 2022. Only Mastercard is beating the S&P 500. But can these stocks win in the future? I think so.

Apple remains a great stock to buy for the same reasons it's made Buffett so much money in the past. Demand should continue to be strong for iPhones for a long time to come. Apple has opportunities to extend its smartphone dominance by introducing augmented reality applications. 

Mastercard should benefit as digital payments replace cash in many cases. The company could especially profit as open banking (expanding interoperability between financial service providers) picks up momentum.

Moody's has a strong moat with its credit rating business. It also has significant growth potential for its analytics unit.

My view is that Apple, Mastercard, and Moody's should be big winners for Buffett over the next five years. And I think all three are good picks for investors who aren't worth close to $100 billion, too. Warren Buffett doesn't have to be the only person to really get it right.

This article was originally published on Fool.com. All figures quoted in US dollars unless otherwise stated.

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When looking for long-term stock holdings, following multi-billionaire Warren Buffett's investments is a good place to start. He's certainly built a long-term track record, but he's also known for his patient approach. One of his sayings is, "Our favorite holding period is forever."

It's tempting to follow Buffett's stock picks blindly, but you still should do your own homework. After all, he's not infallible. These two stocks have been a part of Berkshire Hathaway's portfolio for some time. While their prices are down for the year, both offer excellent long-term growth prospects, presenting a wealth-creating opportunity.

1. Amazon

Amazon's (NASDAQ: AMZN) stock investors have become a little skittish this year. The stock has dropped by more than 37% since the start of 2022, making this a good time to evaluate the company's long-term growth prospects. Fortunately, these look solid.

Looking at Amazon's first-quarter results, sales grew 9% to $116.4 billion, excluding foreign currency exchange translations, but operating income was down by over 58% to $3.7 billion. While this isn't great, it looks likely that Amazon will get back to growing profits down the road. That's because higher costs weighed on profitability as management increased staffing and capacity to meet surging demand, but management has pledged to focus on higher productivity and efficiency.

Even better, its fast-growing, high-margin Amazon Web Services (AWS) business still has bright prospects. In the latest period, AWS' sales increased by 36.6% to $18.4 billion, driving operating income 56.6% higher to $6.5 billion. It was the only segment to report a profit in the latest period.

With an over 35% operating margin, this dwarfs the North American and International segments, which are typically single-digit figures. AWS, the leader in the fast-growing cloud computing business with a 33% market share, faces little competition. Its main rivals are Microsoft's Azure and Alphabet. Better still, the business has significant barriers to entry due to the high cost and space needed for data centers.

The price-to-earnings ratio (P/E) of 50.4 is well below the 80 times it was selling for in April. While Amazon's P/E is higher than the S&P 500's 20 times, as Warren Buffett has stated, "It's far better to buy a wonderful company at a fair price than a fair company at a wonderful price."

2. Moody's

Moody's (NYSE: MCO) stock may have fallen by about 31% this year, but the company's long-term competitive position remains strong. So this looks like an opportune time to purchase shares. 

The company has become known for providing ratings on debt instruments issued by corporations and countries, among other entities. Along with S&P Global, it has a dominant share of the market, with Fitch Ratings coming in a distant third place. Last year, this business produced revenue of $3.8 billion, accounting for over 61% of the total.

There's also its analytics business, which represented the balance of Moody's revenue. While the rating business' results can fluctuate, depending on the economic cycle and debt issuance, this business is steadier since it charges subscription fees for items like data and information.

Moody's first-quarter revenue fell by 4.9% to $1.5 billion. However, the period showed the benefit of having the fee-based analytics business. While the rating business' revenue declined by 20% to $827 million, analytics increased by 9% after excluding the impact of acquired businesses.

The stock currently has a 26 P/E multiple, much lower than the roughly 32 times when 2022 began. With a strong ratings business that will certainly rebound when the markets recover and a growing analytics segment, the stock looks like a bargain for long-term stock investors.

Two stocks to celebrate down the road

Amazon has a strong brand in retailing, but it's become so much more than an online seller. It generates considerable revenue and profits from its AWS business, which looks like it can continue growing quickly for a considerable period. Moody's franchise includes ratings, which debt issuers pay for and many people rely on, plus a steadily growing analytics business.

When you add in that these two stocks currently sell at a much lower valuation than earlier in the year, long-term investors who purchase them likely will have a lot to celebrate when looking back to this moment. 

This article was originally published on Fool.com. All figures quoted in US dollars unless otherwise stated.

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