Warren Buffett is arguably the world's most famous investor today. His reputation comes from decades of success in the stock market. He's leaned on a simple philosophy of buying and holding stocks in wonderful companies.
There is no shame in taking some notes from Warren Buffett and peeking at his holding company, Berkshire Hathaway, for inspiration for your investment strategy.
Here are three Buffett stocks you can buy this month and hold for the long term.
This stock is almost half of Berkshire Hathaway's portfolio
Buffett has a decades-long investing career. Ironically, he made one of his best investments within the past several years. Berkshire Hathaway began scooping up shares of Apple (AAPL -0.35%) in early 2016. Since then, Berkshire's investment in the iPhone maker has grown to nearly half its entire portfolio.
Apple has become a dominant smartphone and personal electronics company, with more than 2 billion active device users who purchase apps, accessories, and subscription services within Apple's ecosystem. Buffett has acknowledged that the ecosystem and how much users depend on these devices, picking up their iPhones dozens of times daily, are reasons he liked the company.
He also likes Apple's tendency for large share repurchases. Apple generates a staggering $100 billion in annual free cash flow and has spent billions of dollars lowering its share count by almost 38% this decade. Fewer shares mean that each existing share represents more of the company and its profits -- it often raises the share price over time, too.
Buffett has owned this stock for over 30 years
An estimated 96% of Americans know the Coca-Cola (KO) brand. Since the company sells to over 200 countries, it's probably realistic that most people on Earth know the brand, too. Coca-Cola's worldwide reach spans many sodas, water, juices, teas, and coffee brands. Nearly two dozen Coca-Cola brands have over $1 billion in annual sales.
Beverages are a great business because people are always thirsty, and there's so much variety in the industry that a giant player like Coca-Cola can steadily grow almost endlessly as it develops new products, acquires emerging brands, and grows with the general population.
The company's durable business model has made it a remarkable dividend stock. Coca-Cola has paid and raised its dividend for 61 consecutive years through recessions, wars, and ups and downs. Buffett's stake in Coca-Cola is worth 6.5% of Berkshire Hathaway's portfolio today, its fourth-largest position. The dividends from those shares added up to $700 million last year, so investors can buy Coca-Cola and begin their own dividend machine.
The growth stock Buffett nearly missed
Buffett is human, which means sometimes even he misses out on an investment. E-commerce giant Amazon (AMZN 3.43%) is one example. The stock is one of Wall Street's best all-time investments, returning more than 147,000% over its lifetime.
Fortunately, Buffett has since corrected that mistake. Berkshire now owns a cool 10 million shares, about 0.4% of Berkshire's portfolio.
Amazon has been an excellent investment because the company has maintained a culture of steady innovation. It started selling books online, and today, it sells nearly 40% of all e-commerce in America. Instead of sitting on its success, Amazon launched a cloud platform, AWS, and grew it into the world's leader. Amazon is still investing and building advertising, media, and artificial intelligence businesses.
Investors can buy the stock today because there is still tread left on Amazon's core e-commerce and cloud segments. These existing segments have room to grow for years to come. However, knowing Amazon, new growth opportunities will be added to the mix over time.
