Buffett's Berkshire hits $1 trillion market cap, first non-tech firm to do so
The market value of Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway hit $1 trillion for the first time on Wednesday, as the conglomerate became the first non-technology company in the U.S. to reach that threshold.
Buffett's firm joined six other firms in the exclusive $1 trillion market cap club, including Apple, Nvidia, Microsoft, Google parent Alphabet, Amazon and Facebook parent Meta.
Berkshire Hathaway has outpaced the benchmark S&P 500 index so far this year, as the company's stock has increased over 28% compared to the index's 18.5% rise.
The milestone comes as the latest signal of the market's long-term confidence in Buffett's leadership. Buffett, who turns 94 on Aug. 30, has led the firm since 1965 and the company's shares have gained over 5,600,000% since he took the helm. That amounts to annual returns of about 20%, nearly double the S&P 500's annualized gain with dividends.
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Berkshire's portfolio includes dozens of businesses across the energy, insurance, manufacturing, retail and service sectors, which collectively generated $22.8 billion in profit during the first half of this year.
Among the businesses it controls are Geico car insurance, the BNSF railroad, Brooks running shoes, fast-food chain Dairy Queen, Ginsu knives and the World Book encyclopedia, among others.
Berkshire also holds a large portfolio of stock and bond investments.
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Though the company reduced its stake in Apple by half, it remains its largest stock holding by far with 400 million shares worth $84.2 billion as of June 30.
Buffett also trimmed his stake in Berkshire's second-largest holding, Bank of America, to about $35.85 billion following the sale of $982 million in shares in recent days that brought its drawdown to about $5.4 billion since mid-July.
As of its most recent earnings report, Berkshire Hathaway's holdings of short-term Treasury bills reached a massive $234 billion – an amount that surpassed the $195 billion in T-bills held on the Federal Reserve's balance sheet.
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Buffett, whose fortune was about $144.9 billion as of Tuesday and made him the sixth-richest person in the world according to Forbes, still owns more than 14% of Berkshire Hathaway despite having donated more than half his shares to charity since 2006.
Reuters contributed to this report.