Catching Up With The Heavyweights Of Berkshire's Stock Portfolio
Sifting for gold in the muddy waters of quarterly earnings calls
I’ve always had a love/hate relationship with quarterly earnings calls.
Myopic analysts sling questions at guarded executives in hopes of squeezing out additional guidance for the next ninety days, fixating on short-term noise that barely moves the needle on a company’s long-term prospects.
Yet, amid the cavalcade of predictable questions and rehearsed answers, you will occasionally stumble upon a key insight or two that makes the whole thing worthwhile. (Or at least that’s what I tell myself.)
What follows are some of those compelling points from the recent earnings calls of Berkshire Hathaway’s largest stock holdings. It’s certainly not an exhaustive recap of the calls as a whole, but a curated selection of ideas that (I hope) get to the heart of that particular company’s current performance and what may lie ahead.
Apple
Okay, I know I just said that quarterly results often distract analysts and investors alike from maintaining a long-term mindset. But, sometimes, a single quarter can upend the narrative surrounding a company in such a way that demands further attention. Over the past year, there has been a lot of angst around Apple — from slumping sales in China to a backlash over certain iOS design changes to a slow start in the artificial intelligence arms race. But, despite all that, Apple absolutely crushed the holiday quarter. “We just had [one] for the record books,” said CEO Tim Cook. In fact, it was Apple’s best quarter in company history — with $143.8 billion in revenue (up 16% from last year) and “simply staggering” iPhone demand.
iPhone revenue surged 23% to $85.3 billion and set records all around the world. Of particular note, 451 Research recently measured customer satisfaction of the iPhone 17 family at an astounding 99%. That’s really high even by Apple standards. “We were thrilled with the customer response on the latest iPhone lineup,” said Cook. “It exceeded our expectations, to say the least.”
So much so that iPhone 17 is — and has been — supply constrained, with Apple selling them just as fast as production allows. (Basically, iPhone sales would have been even better if Apple could get enough chips to make more units.) “We exited December with very lean channel inventory due to that staggering level of demand,” said Cook. “And, based on that, we are in a supply chase mode.”
Almost every question on the earnings call mentioned rising memory prices — and what impact they might have on Apple’s sterling 48.2% gross margin. Cook noted that memory prices had “minimal impact” on the holiday number, but will weigh more heavily next quarter. But, even so, Apple announced that it expects to maintain a similar margin (48-49%) while growing revenue by 13-16%.
It wasn’t too long ago that people were very worried about China, with intensifying competition from local smartphone brands and reports of a CCP crackdown on iPhones for government employees. But that didn’t stop Apple from having what Cook called the best iPhone quarter in the history of Greater China. Revenue grew 38% there, driven mostly by iPhone, and brought with it a record number of upgraders and double-digit growth on switchers from other brands. “A great quarter in China,” said Cook. “We could not be happier with it.”
In a lighter moment, one analyst pressed Cook on Apple’s decision to integrate Google’s Gemini AI technology into Siri — and specifically which company was footing the bill. (Google currently pays ~$20 billion a year to remain the default search engine on Safari.) The Apple CEO, though, did not take the bait and stonewalled the question. “Bummer,” said the analyst. “Okay, well, I tried.” “You did,” Cook said drolly, amid laughter.
American Express
To CEO Stephen Squeri, the American Express story is one of consistency. The financial giant strives to deliver 10% revenue growth and mid-teens earnings per share growth each year, while returning whatever is left over to shareholders. AmEx hit those numbers just about perfectly in 2025 — and guides for more of the same in the year ahead.
On the capital-return front, American Express plans to increase its quarterly dividend by a robust 16%. If my back-of-the-napkin math is correct, that means Berkshire Hathaway will collect $576 million in dividends from AmEx over the next year. Given Berkshire’s $1.3 billion cost basis on these shares, that works out to a mouth-watering 44% yield on cost. One that is likely to get bigger and bigger over time. American Express targets a 20-25% payout ratio and noted that its dividend is now up more than 80% since 2022. Over that same time period, the company has also reduced its share count by 7% via consistent repurchases.
American Express seems to have nailed the revamp of its Platinum Card. “[It] continues to perform even better than our expectations,” said Squeri. “Customer demand is high, engagement is up, and credit quality continues to be excellent.” Best of all, considering it hiked the annual fee for the card from $695 to $895, retention rates have held steady despite the higher cost.
Beyond the successful Platinum refresh, Squeri also highlighted his company’s credit discipline. “You see those delinquency rates, those write-off rates, that are not only best in class, but they are flat,” he said. “I compare and contrast that with many of our competitors that have guided for a small increase there while we’re talking about stability when it comes to those metrics.”
Chevron
Venezuela understandably dominated the discussion here. “Chevron has been in Venezuela for over a century,” said CEO Mike Wirth, “and we remain committed to leveraging our deep expertise and long-standing partnerships for the benefit of our shareholders and the people of Venezuela.” Chevron currently produces about 250,000 barrels per day — and could grow that by another 50% over the next 18-24 months if it receives additional authorizations from the U.S. government.
Wirth made a special point of mentioning that his company’s consistent presence in Venezuela gives it a big leg up on the competition. “The resource potential in Venezuela is large,” he said. “There’s a lot of running room ahead. I can speak to the state of our assets — we have worked hard to keep them safe and reliable and maintain them during this period of time. I think, as you look at the performance out of other assets that we’re not involved in, you can see that may not be the case across the rest of the industry.”
Chevron now prioritizes cash flow over aggressive (and costly) volume growth in a world where global oil demand is expanding but modestly. “Demand for us is growing arguably 1% a year,” said Wirth, “give or take.” As such, the oiler hopes to maintain the approximately 1 million barrels per day coming out of the Permian Basin — while increasing profitability via drilling efficiencies.
In effect, Chevron has traded the breadth of its asset portfolio for better scale on its priority projects. Which, in turn, allows the company to operate at lower cost. “We’ve got to drive break-evens down because we’re in a commodity business,” said Wirth. “We can never forget about that. We’ve got to apply base business excellence to everything that we do.”
This is such a fantastic breakdown of whats really happening beneath the surface. The part about Chevron shifting from volume growth to cash flow optimization really resonated with me, especially in a market thats only growing at 1% annually. It reminds me of how the best operators adapt there strategies when the game changes, rather than chasing growth for growths sake.