For more than 60 years, Warren Buffett has delivered fortune-creating gains for Berkshire Hathaway's shareowners. While the renowned stock picker intends to step down as CEO of the investment juggernaut he helped build at the end of the year, it's not too late to profit from Buffett's best ideas.
Here are two of Berkshire's stocks that are particularly good buys today.
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Berkshire Hathaway stock to buy No. 1: Visa
Visa (V -2.31%) lies at the heart of global commerce. The leading payments network enables billions of people to securely transact all around the world. With the economy set to heat up, now could be a great time to scoop up some of this financial technology leader's shares.
The fintech company's network reaches across more than 200 countries and territories. Visa allows its 4.8 billion credit and debit cardholders to more easily and safely shop at over 150 million merchants' stores.
Visa's platform benefits from powerful network effects. Shoppers want Visa's payment cards because they're accepted almost everywhere, and merchants accept them to gain access to more potential customers.
Visa also enjoys significant scale advantages. The financial services colossus processed 322 billion transactions totaling $16.4 trillion over the trailing 12 months. As its network grows, Visa becomes even more profitable. It generated $5.8 billion in adjusted net income in the third quarter alone, a jump of 19% compared to the prior-year period.
With the Federal Reserve and other central banks set to lower interest rates to stimulate their economies, Visa's profits are poised to rise further in the coming years. Yet this hard-charging company is not content to let a rising tide lift its boat.
Innovative new features like tap-to-pay mobile payments are fueling transaction growth. Visa's expanding array of AI-powered offerings will empower forthcoming AI agents to securely shop on behalf of consumers. Additionally, management's forward-thinking moves to build a settlement platform for stablecoins and leading blockchains like Ethereum and Solana should help Visa remain at the forefront of digital commerce.
Berkshire Hathaway stock to buy No. 2: Occidental Petroleum
Another intriguing Berkshire holding to consider buying is Occidental Petroleum (OXY -1.00%). The energy producer just made a blockbuster deal that should enable it to ramp up its lucrative oil and gas production in the coming years.
Occidental has choice acreage in the Permian Basin, one of the richest sources of oil and gas in the U.S. Oxy, as the company is known, excels at enhanced recovery strategies that use carbon dioxide to harvest more oil from the ground. These advanced capabilities make Oxy's oil-producing operations more efficient -- and more profitable.
So much more profitable, in fact, that CEO Vicki Hollub wants to double down on Oxy's oil and gas development projects. To that end, the company struck a deal on Oct. 2 to sell its chemicals business, OxyChem, to Berkshire Hathaway for $9.7 billion. In a press release announcing the deal, Hollub said the sale would strengthen Oxy's finances and advance its 20-year plan for low-cost energy production.
Hollub intends to use $6.5 billion of the proceeds to pay down Oxy's debt and the remaining cash to shore up the company's reserves. With a stronger balance sheet, lower interest costs, and more cash to allocate to development opportunities, Oxy will be on a far firmer footing following the expected closing of the sale in the fourth quarter.
The deal also positions Oxy to resume share repurchases in 2026. We might see Berkshire buying more shares, too. Buffett's investment conglomerate already owns nearly 27% of Oxy's stock -- currently valued at over $11 billion -- and has regulatory approval to increase its stake to as high as 50%.
