The easiest way to invest like Warren Buffett is to emulate his investment portfolio. Given the immense size of Berkshire Hathaway's stock holdings, the company is required to disclose in Securities and Exchange Commission filings what it owns in the U.S. every quarter. This is like a free investment tip sheet -- albeit slightly delayed when published -- that tracks what Buffett is buying and selling.
When Buffett makes an investment, it's generally with the aim to buy and hold for the long haul. Here are two top Buffett stocks in the Berkshire Hathaway portfolio that investors can buy with confidence today and hold on for gains many years into the future.
NYSE: AXP
Key Data Points
Dominance in premium credit cards
Buffett's second-largest holding is the well-known credit card brand American Express (AXP +1.00%). Berkshire Hathaway owns more 20% of this business and has held it for decades.
American Express just reported its Q3 earnings, putting up impressive financial growth, yet again. Revenue grew 11% year over year, driven by 18% year-over-year growth in credit card fees and 12% growth in net interest income.
With its portfolio of high-fee cards focused on serving travel and entertainment clients, American Express has a rock-solid position within the premium credit card segment. It added 3.2 million new credit cards last quarter, spread across individual and business clients. Consistently adding new credit cards is the base that builds long-term revenue growth.
Revenue is growing in the double-digit percentages, but earnings-per-share (EPS) growth is even more impressive, up 19% year over year in the latest quarter. For all of 2025, the company expects 14%-16% growth in EPS.
Per-share earnings are growing faster than revenue due to operating leverage within the business, as well as American Express' consistent stock repurchase program, which is bringing down the number of shares outstanding. Share buybacks are a key factor Buffett looks for when making stock investments, and you should too.
American Express has been a mainstay in business and consumer spending for decades, and I don't think it is going away anytime soon. Buy this stock and never sell it.
Niche consumer banking
A newer investment for Berkshire Hathaway is Ally Financial (ALLY +2.29%). It owns just under 10% of this upstart online bank, first purchasing shares at the beginning of 2022.
Ally Financial operates a consumer bank without in-person branches, which helps the company save on overhead costs, compared to big legacy banks. In turn, lower costs allow Ally to offer higher interest rates on savings accounts, consistently attracting customer deposits. As of the third quarter of 2025, Ally Financial had 3.4 million deposit customers and $142 billion in consumer deposits on its balance sheet.
With these deposits, Ally mainly makes loans for car purchases, having built up a large relationship with the vast dealer network in the U.S. Last quarter, it originated $11.7 billion in loans and had 4 million applications flow through its systems.
In the past few years, this lending business has gone through some fits and starts because of the rising-interest-rate environment. In 2022, Ally made some loans to riskier borrowers at lower interest rates, which has been a headwind to profitability.
Now, these loans are beginning to mature and move off of the balance sheet, which is improving Ally's profitability. Its net interest margin (NIM) -- measuring the profitability spread between its interest rate paid on deposits and interest rate earned on its loan portfolio -- expanded to 3.5% in the quarter. It's this slow recovery that will help Ally Financial's EPS rebound over the next few years and likely why Berkshire Hathaway still owns this stock.
Ally's forward price-to-earnings ratio (P/E) is just 7, while its dividend is currently yielding close to 3%. The company historically repurchases its stock, as well. Add it all up, and Ally Financial looks like a good stock for investors to buy today in order to emulate Buffett's portfolio.
