In the following video, Jeremy Phillips interviews Austin Smith, who talks about three more Warren Buffett favorites.
The first is Wal-Mart. At $3.4 billion, this is a smaller Buffett position that most, but Austin says this stock helped create the Buffett we know. Buffett identified Wal-Mart as a great stock early on but missed a golden buying opportunity by sitting on the sidelines after a small uptick in the share price. He did buy the shares later, but he eventually revealed that his delay cost him $10 billion in potential profit. The lesson? Don't let a small price increase change how you're investing.
The second is American Express, a $9.7 billion position, and the third is GEICO.
Austin says Buffett doesn't try to predict which companies will continue to have moats in the future but instead looks for companies with well-developed, well-known moats and with managers who can take advantage of those moats. He notes that Coca-Cola, IBM (a pick Buffett made in the past 18 months), and now Heinz already had long-established moats when Buffett bought their shares.
