Warren Buffett-led Berkshire Hathaway owns many stocks in its huge $284 billion public equity portfolio. Investors are certainly familiar with some of its well-known holdings. They include consumer electronics leader Apple, and beverage giant Coca-Cola.
However, neither of these businesses are smart buying opportunities today, in my opinion. I believe that title goes to two other companies that investors must take a closer look at.
Here are the best Warren Buffett stocks to buy right now with $1,000.
Image source: The Motley Fool.
Amazon has its hands in multiple growth areas
The first Buffett stock to consider adding to your portfolio is Amazon (AMZN -0.87%), the tech juggernaut that only represents 0.7% of Berkshire's portfolio. Its shares have soared 868% in the past 10 years.
Amazon is unique because it is positioned to gain from multiple growth tailwinds. Of course, there's online shopping, which remains the company's bread and butter. However, there is also cloud computing, with Amazon Web Services (AWS) commanding a a leading 29% market share in the industry. We can't forget about digital advertising, a lesser-known money-maker that brought in $13.9 billion in revenue in the first quarter.
Then there's artificial intelligence (AI), a new area that is seeing massive amounts of investment activity. Amazon is using AI to better serve its customers, especially within AWS. In Q1 2025, the company spent $24.3 billion in capital expenditures, with much of it going to expand tech- and AI-related infrastructure.
The business has historically been known for boosting its top line in remarkable fashion. But in recent years, Amazon's profitability has improved dramatically, thanks to CEO Andy Jassy's focus on expense controls. Operating income in 2024 totaled $68.6 billion, up from $36.9 billion in 2023.
It's difficult to envision a scenario in which Amazon gets disrupted or becomes obsolete. That's because the business has a wide economic moat that protects its competitive position. Its online marketplace has a network effect. AWS possesses tremendous scale that's showing up on the bottom line, and the cloud segment's customers likely have switching costs.
American Express is a premium brand in financial services
The second stock to consider that the Oracle of Omaha owns is none other than American Express (AXP -0.53%). This is Berkshire's second largest position, as the conglomerate owns 21.6% of the outstanding shares.
Despite economic uncertainty, Amex reported another solid quarter. During the three-month period that ended March 31, the company saw its revenue grow 7% year over year, driven by greater payment volume. What's more, diluted earnings per share jumped 9%, showcasing impressive profitability gains.
Like Amazon, American Express possesses an economic moat. The credit card giant benefits by having a powerful network effect. It has 147.5 million active cards that are accepted at about 90 million merchant locations around the globe. The more cardholders there are, the more valuable the network is to merchants looking to grow their sales. And as Amex increases its acceptance points, cardholders have more utility.
The brand is also very strong, partly driven by the company's long history and the view that its cards are a status symbol. With its premium offerings that carry high annual fees and come with top-notch perks, Amex targets a more affluent customer base that has higher spending power than the average consumer. Lately, these customers have been from the millennial and Gen Z demographics, which is an encouraging trend.
As of this writing, Amex shares trade at a price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 20.7. While this isn't as cheap as the 16.2 multiple from early April, it might still be a good idea to take a closer look at this high-quality business. Investors can even dollar-cost average into the Buffett stock over several months.
