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Warren Buffett’s best-performing stock over the past three months isn’t Apple or Amazon, even though shares of both tech titans surged to all-time highs this week.
Instead, the star holding of the famed investor and Berkshire Hathaway CEO since early May is Restoration Hardware, a high-end furniture retailer. Buffett’s second-best performer is StoneCo, a Brazilian digital-payments company.
Meanwhile, Restoration Hardware shares have rocketed up 106%, and StoneCo has surged 81%. Another standout in Buffett’s portfolio is the package-delivery company United Parcel Service, which has soared about 58% in the period, according to Gurufocus.
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True, Apple’s and Amazon’s size means the rally in their stocks over the past three months has added more than $1 trillion to their combined market capitalization.
Meanwhile, Restoration Hardware and StoneCo have added less than $10 billion in total to theirs.
As a result, any movement in Apple stock matters much more to Berkshire’s overall value than a change in the price of its Restoration Hardware or StoneCo shares. The same is true for Amazon, assuming Berkshire still holds a $1.7 billion stake in the e-commerce giant.
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Still, it’s surprising that for all the hype around Apple and Amazon, they are far from Buffett’s best-performing holdings on a percentage basis in recent months.
Berkshire first invested in Restoration Hardware in the third quarter of 2019, buying about 1.1 million shares. It boosted that stake to more than 1.7 million shares in the following quarter, or nearly 9% of the total shares outstanding.
Buffett’s company took a position in StoneCo in the fourth quarter of 2018. It bought about 14.2 million shares that it hasn’t touched since, giving it a roughly 5% stake.
Assuming Buffett hasn’t adjusted those holdings, they are worth about $695 million and $516 million.
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Here’s a chart showing the four stocks’ recent performance, indexed to May 1:
Markets Insider