American stock exchanges are home to eight companies valued at least $1,000 billion as of October 21:
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Apple: 3.59 trillion dollars.
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Nvidia: 3.52 trillion dollars.
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Microsoft: 3,110 billion dollars.
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Alphabet: 2.02 trillion dollars.
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Amazon: $1.98 trillion.
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Metaplatforms: $1.45 trillion.
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Semiconductor manufacturing in Taiwan: $1.04 trillion.
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Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE:BRK.A)(NYSE:BRK.B): 1,000 billion dollars
Apple became the first company to make a trillion dollars in 2018. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing is the newest member of this exclusive club, but Berkshire Hathaway – which crossed the trillion-dollar threshold in August – is the newest member based in the United States.
Berkshire is an investment company that Warren Buffett has run since 1965. He and his team manage a portfolio of publicly traded stocks worth $317 billion, in addition to cash of $277 billion and numerous wholly-owned private subsidiaries.
Since 2018, Buffett has authorized the repurchase of Berkshire shares worth $77.8 billion. That’s twice as much as the conglomerate has invested in a single company in its entire history.
Buffett is a value investorhe therefore likes to buy large companies at an attractive price with the intention of holding them for the long term. Consistent growth, robust profitability and reliable management teams are just some of the attributes he looks for when deciding to invest. He also favors companies that pay dividends and share repurchase plans, which helps increase his returns over time.
Berkshire holds on Coca-Cola (NYSE:KO) is a great example of Buffett’s strategy in action. Berkshire spent $1.3 billion buying shares of the beverage giant between 1988 and 1994, and never sold a single one. This position is now worth a whopping $27.7 billion. Additionally, Berkshire is on track to earn $776 million in dividends from its stake in Coca-Cola in 2024 alone.
But that’s just one of Berkshire’s many successes. Its other long-term investments include American Express, Moody’s Corp.and Apple.
Apple is the largest holding in Berkshire’s portfolio today. He spent about $38 billion acquiring shares of the iPhone maker between 2016 and 2023. Although Berkshire sold a significant portion of its stake this year (which I’ll talk more about in a moment), the position is worth still $94.5 billion as of this writing. . That represents 29.8% of Berkshire’s $317 billion portfolio of publicly traded stocks.
Berkshire Hathaway was originally a textile company, and it was on the brink of failure before Buffett stepped in to buy it in 1965. He couldn’t save his legacy business, so he converted it as a holding company for its various investments.