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Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.A) CEO Warren Buffett just got an early birthday present.
Berkshire Hathaway, Buffett’s sprawling Omaha-based conglomerate, reached a market capitalization of $1 trillion Wednesday, becoming the first U.S. company outside of the tech sector to reach the milestone.
Shares of Berkshire climbed 1% Wednesday morning to hit the milestone, with shares trading at a whopping $698,901 apiece. For reference, the median sale price of a home in the United States was $439,455 in July.
This year alone, Berkshire has added around $200 billion in market value. The company’s stock rally has outpaced gains by the S&P 500 so far in 2024, returning nearly 29%, compared with the index’s 19%.
Buffett, the legendary investor known as “the Oracle of Omaha,” is turning 94 years old Friday.
Berkshire now joins the likes of Apple (AAPL), Nvidia (NVDA), Google (GOOGL), Microsoft (MSFT), Amazon (AMZN), and Meta (META) with its thirteen-figure market value. Elon Musk’s Tesla (TSLA) had previously crossed the $1 trillion threshold, but lost ground after a series of sales misses and other missteps.
Read more: Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway holds more U.S. Treasury bills than the Federal Reserve
In recent months, Berkshire has grown its cash pile to a record $276.9 billion, according to the company’s regulatory filings. The conglomerate has been on a selling spree of late, reducing its stake in Apple for three consecutive quarters now. In the last quarter, it halved its massive stake in Apple to hold $84.2 billion in the iPhone-maker’s stock. That sale could cost Buffett an estimated $15 billion in taxes this year.
Buffett has also continued to trim its stake in Bank of America. Most recently, it sold $981.9 million worth of the bank’s stock, bringing its total gains from the series of sales to $5.4 billion.
As of June 30, Apple, Bank of America, and the American Express Company are Berkshire’s largest holdings.