Berkshire Hathaway's Top Holdings: Apple, American Express, and Alphabet

Warren Buffett's investment portfolio remains closely tied to Berkshire Hathaway, and its top three holdings make up over half of its equity portfolio. The conglomerate's biggest positions are in Apple (AAPL), American Express (AXP), and Alphabet (GOOG) (GOOGL).

The largest holding is Apple, which accounts for around 22% of Berkshire's portfolio. Buffett favors the company due to its strong compounding business model and wide moat. Apple generates significant revenue from a range of sources, including search revenue-sharing deals with Alphabet, app commissions, Apple Pay, and cloud storage subscriptions.

Another prominent holding is American Express, making up over 17% of Berkshire's portfolio. The charge card provider benefits from its closed-loop system, where it acts as both the card issuer and payment network, allowing it to profit from both sides of transactions. Its members are predominantly wealthy clients who spend significantly more than average consumers.

Alphabet is Berkshire's third-largest holding, making up nearly 13% of its stock holdings. The company's AI stack gives it a significant cost advantage in the cloud space and enables it to monetize consumers through its ad network. Alphabet also has control over distribution channels and can apply its models across various businesses, including Google Search.

When considering which of these stocks is the best buy today, Alphabet stands out as the cheapest on a forward price-to-earnings basis, trading under 17 times. It also offers arguably the best long-term growth prospects among the three companies.