Warren Buffett: His Best Investing Strategies, Stocks, and Advice

Anyone interested in the stock market, investing, or money matters has likely encountered Warren Buffett's stock picks, advice, or legendary tales.

He holds the title as the greatest investor alive, and unlike many billionaires, he's willing to teach us how to financially fish.

But with so much out there, it's hard to narrow it down to the essential Buffett.

That's what our aim is here. Whether you want a list of Buffett's favorite stocks, the lowdown on Buffett's investing techniques, or some advanced reading, you'll find it here.

Let's start with the billion-dollar topic:

How to Invest Like Warren Buffett

Buffett bought his first stock at age 11 using the information available to any other investor. Now well into his eighties, he's still at it.

At this point, he buys companies outright for his company, Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE: BRK-A) (NYSE: BRK-B), and can pull off the exotic deal here and there. But Buffett and his team manage over $200 billion (and growing) in stocks in public companies.

How does he do it? He spends a significant amount of time reading exactly what you and I can -- 10-Ks, SEC filings, and likely earnings call transcripts.

One of the key differences between him and most of the rest of us who get excited for each morning's stock market open is his amazing focus. It's like he's running both a sprint AND a marathon. You learn a ton from reading a company's annual report. But what if you do it on a company for 20, 30, 40, 50+ straight years? And for all its competitors? And for companies in completely different industries, even the ones you'd never actually be interested in investing in?

Few of us start early enough and have the level of consistent focus to become the next Warren Buffett, but each of us has the chance to become a better investor by heeding these seven principles:

Invest in what you know.
Learn the basics of value investing.
Identify cheap stocks.
Find businesses that will stand the test of time.
Invest in good management.
Be aggressive during tough times.
Keep a long-term mindset.

Read on: How to Invest Like Warren Buffett: A Step-by-Step Guide

Warren Buffett's Latest Stock Picks

When you're the world's most renowned stock picker, everyone wants your latest hot stock tip. As much as Buffett shares his wisdom, he's mum on his next moves. There are many reasons for this, including the fact that if he told us, a whole bunch of people would pile into the company and Buffett would get a worse stock price.

However, luckily for us, the SEC requires investment managers of Berkshire Hathaway's size to disclose their equity moves in a quarterly 13F.

As part of Buffett's succession planning, he's been giving increasing amounts of the portfolio over to Todd Combs and Ted Weschler, but he still controls the bulk of the portfolio and accounts for the largest moves.

Buffett's Top 10 Stock Holdings

While Berkshire Hathaway's quarterly buys and sells show Buffett's latest moves, it's also good to take a step back and see what the largest holdings are:

Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL)
Bank of America (NYSE: BAC)
Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC)
Coca-Cola (NYSE: KO)
American Express (NYSE: AXP)
Kraft Heinz (NASDAQ: KHC)
U.S. Bancorp (NYSE: USB)
JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM)
Moody's Corporation (NYSE: MCO)
Bank of New York Mellon (NYSE: BK)

Some things that jump out:

These are huge companies! Buffett's success and riches mean he can't move the needle by buying shares in small-cap or even mid-cap companies.
Seven of the 10 are banks or financials.
The remaining three (Apple, AmEx, and Kraft Heinz) are large consumer brands.

Read more analysis: Buffett's Top 10 Stock Holdings

Warren Buffett's Top 100 Quotes

Beyond his performance, a reason Buffett is so famous is that he prefers pithiness to jargon.

If asked about one of the big risks in derivatives, a talking head in the financial news would probably talk about counterparty risk and complex instruments like CDO's. Meanwhile, Buffett isn't afraid to get creative: "Derivatives are like sex. It's not who we're sleeping with, it's who they're sleeping with that's the problem."

Believe it or not, that one didn't make our top 100.

Read on: The 100 Best Warren Buffett Quotes

Warren Buffett's Dividend Strategies

If you glance up at Buffett's top 10 stocks, you may notice that every single one of them pays a dividend.

Meanwhile, you may also notice that the company Buffett runs (Berkshire Hathaway) doesn't pay a dividend.

Clearly, there's some nuance to Buffett's thinking on dividends...

Read on: Warren Buffett and Dividend Stocks: Everything Investors Need to Know

Buffett's Thoughts on Each Asset Class: Stocks, Bonds, Gold ... and Even Bitcoin

As you think about where to put your money, the percentage you put in each bucket can be just as important (or more important) than what you do in each bucket.

For instance, if you beat the stock market every year with your stock picks, but stocks are only 1% of your portfolio, does it make much difference to your financial security or retirement plans?

Let's check in on what Uncle Warren thinks about many of the popular options...

Read on: What Warren Buffett Thinks About Stocks, Bonds, Gold, Cash, Real Estate, Index Funds, and Cryptocurrencies

The Berkshire Hathaway Annual Shareholders Meeting

Each year, somewhere in the neighborhood of 40,000 people attend the Berkshire Hathaway annual shareholders meeting, aka Woodstock for Capitalists.

It's pretty amazing that an investing conference gets as many people to show up as a major sporting event. In Omaha, Nebraska no less. And that's not even counting the people who watch on Yahoo! Finance's livestream.

At its core, the annual meeting is Warren Buffett and his partner Charlie Munger on stage for a few hours answering any and all questions from a selected group of esteemed journalists as well as any attendee who gets there early enough to queue up at the microphones.

Bookending the Q&A is a humorous "company movie" beforehand and the generally uneventful actual business meeting afterwards. This year in the Q&A, we got to hear from key lieutenants Greg Abel and Ajit Jain on a few questions. No luck for those who wanted to hear hot stock tips from Ted and Todd ... Buffett says they don't speak because he doesn't want them to give away any investing special sauce.

Extended out, it's a whole weekend of festivities, including shopping at Berkshire-related vendors exhibiting at the CHI Health Center, a picnic at Nebraska Furniture Mart, a 5k race, shareholder steak night at Gorat's (one of Warren's favorite restaurants), etc.

For those who don't want to sit through the eight-hour stream, we highlight the most interesting bits each year.

Read on: 7 Warren Buffett Highlights From Berkshire Hathaway's 2019 Meeting

The Berkshire Hathaway Annual Shareholder Letter

Perhaps an even better way to get Buffett's distilled wisdom than traveling to Omaha is reading his yearly missive to shareholders. Every edition brings both specific insights into Berkshire's business as well as general insights into investing.

You can access them all here from Berkshire's site.

And, of course, we provide a summary each year...

Read on: 9 Key Takeaways From Warren Buffett's Annual Letter to Berkshire Hathaway Shareholders

The 5 Best Books on Warren Buffett

Buffett's written a lot himself, but much more has been written about him. If you're trying to get deeper looks into the Oracle of Omaha's strategies or just what makes him tick, start with these five:

Buffett: The Making of an American Capitalist, by Roger Lowenstein
The Warren Buffett Way, by Robert G. Hagstrom
The Warren Buffett CEO, by Robert P. Miles
The Snowball: Warren Buffett and the Business of Life, by Alice Schroeder
Tap Dancing to Work: Warren Buffett on Practically Everything, 1966-2013, by Carol J. Loomis

Warren Buffett FAQ

How old is Warren Buffett?

88 years old as of this writing. He was born on August 30, 1930.

What is Warren Buffett's net worth?

It's north of $80 billion. Depending on the day, he's the third-richest person in the world behind Jeff Bezos (and family) and Bill Gates. And that's AFTER deciding in 2006 to start giving away 99% of his wealth (and all of his Berkshire Hathaway stock) to charity during his lifetime or at death. He's already given away tens of billions of dollars.

Where did Warren Buffett go to school?

For undergraduate, he attended Wharton at the University of Pennsylvania before transferring to the University of Nebraska. For graduate school, he went to Columbia Business School.

Which investors influenced Warren Buffett?

Buffett has said his investing style is "85% Graham and 15% Fisher."

Graham is Benjamin Graham, "The Father of Value Investing." He wrote The Intelligent Investor and co-wrote Security Analysis with David Dodd. He was Buffett's professor and mentor at Columbia Business School and his boss for a bit.

Fisher is Philip Fisher, a pioneer in growth investing and the author of Common Stocks and Uncommon Profits.

While Graham and Fisher were Buffett's investing heroes, his business partner Charlie Munger has likely been his strongest peer influence.

The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Apple, Berkshire Hathaway (B shares), and Moody's. The Motley Fool has the following options: long January 2020 $150 calls on Apple and short January 2020 $155 calls on Apple. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.