7 Investing Lessons from Warren Buffett

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I'm Nicole Lapin, the only financial expert. You don't need a dictionary to understand it's time for some money. At the end of 2025, Warren Buffett, at 95 years young, stepped down as the CEO of Berkshire Hathaway and pass the torch over to Greg Abel. Buffett isn't fully out of the pict. Don't worry, he is still the chairman of the board. But it is certainly the end of an era and the beginning of a new one. Warren Buffett is one of the most iconic investors of all time, maybe the most iconic. His investing strategy has turned Berkshire Hathaway into one of the most successful companies in history and made Buffett one of the wealthiest people on the planet. Since taking control of Berkshire Hathaway in 1965, Buffett has delivered an average annual return of around 20%, nearly doubling the S&P 500 average over that same stretch. A $1,000 investment in Berkshire in 1965 would be worth over $30 million today. Because Buffett is such a famed investor, he moves markets. When he invests in something, other investors definitely take note. So how do we answer the question, what would Warren do when we can no longer look to Berkshire for clues? Well, we can copy his investing frameworks, which, lucky for us, are very simple. But they're not easy, Buffett says. Buy great businesses at fair prices and hold them forever or close to it. But spotting great businesses isn't so easy, or else everyone would be beating the S&P 500. So I'm going to Unpack some famous examples of Warren Buffett's investment decisions and then I'll decode the big lessons that we can all take away from those stories. And I know what you might be thinking. We might not have to look away from Berkshire to actually know what Buffett would do. Abel might have studied Buffett long enough to replicate his money move. Well, I will say more on that at the very end. But first, some Buffett lore. One of Warren Buffett's most famous and enduring investments is Coca Cola, which Berkshire began buying in 1988 after the 1987 market crash and would end up putting in around $1.3 billion. Buffett picked Coke because he saw a company with an unshakable brand, massive distribution network and global pricing power. He also noted the psychological loyalty that people have to their beverage of ch choice and Coke's ability to raise prices without losing customers. Today, Berkshire owns more than 6% of the company. And that 1.3 billion dollar investment is now worth over 28 billion dollars. And the dividends alone now exceed 700 million dollars per year. Another classic example of Warren Buffett's strategy is his investment in McDonald's stock during the 2008 financial crisis. With this investment, he took advantage of a temporary undervaluation in a company in he deeply admired. Though he didn't hold onto the shares for decades like he did with Coke, the McDonald's investment reflected classic Buffett behavior. When markets panic, Buffett looks for opportunities in strong, steady businesses that will survive downturns. Now let's talk about a huge evolution in Buffett's strategy. Apple. For years, Warren Buffett avoided tech. He said he didn't understand it well enough to invest in it. But in 2016, Berkshire began buying Apple. A few years later, it became Berkshire's single biggest holding. Buffett saw Apple not as a tech company, but as a consumer products company with an unmatched ecosystem. Its brand loyalty, recurring revenue and pricing power made it look a lot like Coca Cola, but with better margin. Berkshire invested about $31 billion into Apple. Today it's worth over 160 billion. And while Buffett trimmed the position slightly in 2023, he's still all in on the iPhone economy. But before we get too hyped up, Buffett always hit home runs. Buffett called IBM a long term investment back in 2011, it did not work out. Company failed to adapt quickly to the shift toward cloud computing and Buffett eventually sold his stake. He also missed out on Google and Amazon early on, despite understanding their dominance later on. He said he didn't fully grasp their business models at that time, and that is part of the whole circle of competence discipline. He does not chase what he doesn't understand, even if it means missing out on some upcoming upside. But here's the Buffett twist even his misses Teach us something valuable. You don't have to be right all the time. You just have to be right enough and let your winners compound over time. So, zooming out beyond the big tickers, here are seven big takeaways that you can apply whether you have a hundred bucks or 100 million bucks to invest. First, invest in what you understand. Buffett famously stays away from businesses that he doesn't get, which is why for many years he avoided tech stocks. Second, look for durable competitive advantages. He calls them economic moats, things like strong brand identity, pricing power or network effects that protect a company from competitors. Third, management matters. He invests in companies with competent shareholder friendly leadership. Next, buy at a discount to intrinsic value. Value investing is about identifying what a business is truly worth and only buying when that stock is priced below that, and be greedy when others are fearful. This is a click. Classic, classic Buffet ism Crashes create opportunities. So do panic. Also, keep a long time horizon. Compounding works best when you leave it the heck alone. And maybe above all, cash flow is king. Or as I like to say, queen. Buffett wants businesses that are not just profitable on paper, but that generate real, consistent, growing cash flow. So will Buffett's successor, Greg Abel, be able to follow these seven tenants? Abel, who previously ran Berkshire's non insurance businesses, has long been seen as a steady, Buffett approved operator with deep knowledge of the firm's culture and financial DNA. While Buffett is still involved as chairman, he's left able with both the reins and an incredible amount of dry powder to work with. As of the end of 2025, Berkshire was sitting on nearly $400 billion in cash and short term investments, which gives Abel significant flexibility for future investment moves. One of his first reassessing Berkshire's long held stake in Kraft Heinz, a position that Buffett once admitted he overpaid for in a 2015 merger deal that hasn't aged well. Abel now seems to be prepping to scale down or fully exit that investment, according to a recent SEC filing. While this move isn't set in stone yet, it certainly signals a desire to clean up the portfolio, a possible reflection of Abel's intent to be a more active and pragmatic steward of Berkshire's holdings. Morningstar analysts called the move a sign of Abel's willingness to reset the deck early in his tenure. If so, it marks a quiet but meaningful shift away from holding through thick and thin and toward a more strategic, flexible approach while still honoring the foundational values that Buffett built. For today's tip, you can take straight to the bank. While today I've been talking a lot about picking individual stocks, Warren Buffett has a directive in his own will that he left for his own wife to invest 90% of their money in S P 500 index funds and 10% in short term government bonds. Which brings me to my very last Buffetism Avoid unnecessary risk. Buffett has said that his first rule of investing is don't lose money. His second rule is don't forget rule number one.

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