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Berkshire Hathaway<\/a> reached a $1 trillion market capitalization<\/a> Wednesday morning, becoming the first non-technology company in the U.S. to do so. The milestone amounts to an early birthday present for chairman Warren Buffett,<\/a> who turns 94 on Friday.<\/p>\n The conglomerate\u2019s Class A shares initially rose over 1% Wednesday and hit an all-time high above the $699,000 mark, allowing Berkshire to temporarily crack the $1 trillion threshold, before falling slightly as the day continued. Berkshire has famously never split the stock, which sells for almost 70% more than the median price of a home in the U.S., according to data<\/a> from the St. Louis Fed.<\/p>\n That\u2019s because Buffett wants to attract investors with investment horizons in line with his buy-and-hold<\/a> philosophy. The shares have gained 29% year to date, compared to just 18% for the S&P 500. Investors can gain cheaper exposure to Buffett\u2019s portfolio, however, with the company\u2019s Class B shares, which also hit an all-time high Wednesday and are trading above the $462 mark.<\/p>\n Before he was known as the Oracle of Omaha<\/a>, Buffett bought a struggling New England textile manufacturer in 1965, believing it was available for a bargain. It proved to be a bad bet, but Buffett transformed the company into one of the largest conglomerates in history, making Berkshire a vehicle for his investment philosophy that centers on value-oriented stock picking and diverse acquisitions.<\/p>\n His approach proved successful. From 1965 to the end of 2022, Berkshire\u2019s stock rose 3,787,464%, far outpacing the S&P 500\u2019s 24,708% gain. If you invested $10,000 in Berkshire 59 years ago, Fortune\u2019s<\/em> Will Daniel noted<\/a>, you would have made $378 million by the end of that span.<\/p>\n As a result, Berkshire is flirting with a club previously only occupied by the U.S. tech giants and Saudi Aramco<\/a>, officially the Saudi Arabian Oil Group, the kingdom\u2019s state-owned oil company. Buffett\u2019s conglomerate boasts the seventh-biggest market cap in the U.S., exceeding those of Eli Lily, Broadcom<\/a>, and Tesla<\/a>.<\/p>\n The tech members of what Fortune<\/em>\u2019s Shawn Tully dubbed the Trillion-Dollar Club<\/a> enjoy incredible dominance in their respective markets. Their long-term fates, meanwhile, appear tied to the hundreds of billions of dollars they\u2019re spending<\/a> to ensure they remain leaders in the age of AI.<\/p>\n Buffett\u2019s company, therefore, is distinct for its old-school holdings. Berkshire\u2019s signature property is Geico Insurance<\/a>, and it also owns household names like Duracell, Fruit of the Loom, Dairy Queen, and BNSF Railway<\/a>. Buffett is revered for his value-based approach, which has typically favored<\/a> the likes of Coca-Cola<\/a> and American Express<\/a> rather than Big Tech, and his company owns more short-term treasuries than the Federal Reserve.<\/p>\n Nonetheless, it\u2019s worth noting that Apple<\/a> makes up roughly 40% of Berkshire\u2019s portfolio, remaining the company\u2019s biggest holding, even after Buffett created headlines<\/a> by recently offloading almost half of his position in the iPhone maker. The selloff, which generated the bulk of Berkshire\u2019s $90 billion in proceeds from sales in the first half of 2024, Tully wrote<\/a>, might go down \u201cas of one of the best bets of his career.\u201d<\/p>\n Buffett has previous warned Berkshire\u2019s size could become an obstacle to future returns, saying the conglomerate is generating more cash ($277 billion, including short-term equivalents, as of last quarter) than it can adequately deploy.<\/p>\n Thus far, however, he and his investors have had plenty to celebrate.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\nOld-school Berkshire Hathaway stands alone among Big Tech players<\/h2>\n
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