The first quarter of 2016 is in the books, and it's been somewhat of a roller-coaster ride for the stock market. After a 10% drop by mid-February and an ensuing rebound, the S&P 500 and Dow Jones Industrial Average are virtually unchanged for 2016, up by a percentage point or 2.

Of course, this flat performance isn't true of all stocks. In fact, some have performed quite well, including Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE:BRK-A) (NYSE:BRK-B). Berkshire is beating the market rather handily, and is up 8.3% in 2016 as of this writing (37.6% annualized). Some of this strong performance can be attributed to Berkshire's many wholly owned subsidiary businesses, which individual investors like you and me can't directly invest in.

However, a large portion of Berkshire's performance is dependent on its vast and diverse stock portfolio. Since this is the part of Berkshire that individual investors can buy for their own portfolios, let's take a look at Warren Buffett's top-performing stocks of 2016, and why Buffett likes each one.

Matthew Frankel owns shares of AT&T and Berkshire Hathaway. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Berkshire Hathaway and Kinder Morgan. The Motley Fool has the following options: short June 2016 $12 puts on Kinder Morgan. The Motley Fool recommends Coca-Cola and Verizon Communications. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.