5 Warren Buffett Stocks to Hold Forever

Warren Buffett is no longer the CEO of his investment vehicle, Berkshire Hathaway(NYSE: BRKA)(NYSE: BRKB), but the celebrated investor is leaving a long shadow. In fact, many of the company's stock positions in its equity portfolio were opened during his long tenure as its leader.

New(ish) CEO Greg Abel has already left his mark on the company as its chief, but the portfolio is still anchored by Buffett-era picks. Of this clutch of stocks, five stand out as investments to own for a lifetime -- American Express(NYSE: AXP), Alphabet(NASDAQ: GOOG)(NASDAQ: GOOGL), Apple(NASDAQ: AAPL), Coca-Cola(NYSE: KO), and Moody's(NYSE: MCO).

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1. American Express

Amex is one of Berkshire's earliest and most resounding successes. Buffett pounced on the credit card giant's shares in 1964, following a scandal that threatened the existence of the company and sent its stock down to bargain-basement levels. As a company, Berkshire followed suit in 1991.

A buy-and-hold investor to his core, Buffett never let go. To this day, Berkshire maintains a monster stake in the company, with 22% of its outstanding shares.

Berkshire wouldn't keep such a tight grip if Amex weren't a constant outperformer. The company habitually posts top-line growth, accompanied by robust profitability that usually beats analyst estimates. The company functions as both the issuer of its credit and the processor of transactions on its cards, positioning it to earn billions in fees and interest charges.

There aren't many financial stocks that do as consistently well as Amex, even through recessions and other trying economic times. This is going to be a winner for many more decades, at least.

2. Alphabet

The parent company of Google, Alphabet is far more than just its core asset's eternally money-spinning search engine.

It's a leader in self-driving technology with Waymo, and a force in artificial intelligence (AI). The latter is due to its specialty homegrown tensor processing units engineered specifically to power the technology, and its growing suite of AI models. As if that weren't enough, its cloud offerings are growing rapidly in popularity.

Granted, not all of Alphabet's businesses bring in revenue immediately; Waymo is a leading example. But the company's star units -- hello, search! -- make vast amounts of money and allow the moonshots plenty of time and space to develop into strong businesses.

The company's top line alone tells the tale. Over the past five years, annual revenue has zoomed from less than $258 billion to almost $403 billion. Profitability is also in the 12-figure range these days, with headline net income coming in at $132 billion last year. And with those up-and-coming revenue streams, this company is just getting warmed up for even bigger things.

3. Apple

Buffett was famous for being very tech-averse over the course of many decades; that stance changed dramatically in 2016 with a splashy buy-in of Apple. That stake swelled to slightly more than 50% of Berkshire's overall equity portfolio; sensibly enough, Berkshire has reduced its stake over the years. Make no mistake: That holding is still huge, with its more than $70 billion value making it Berkshire's largest position.

That works out very well, as Apple has performed better lately than many expected, with surprising top-line growth in its historically sluggish products segment. (Its other main revenue stream, services, has risen more consistently.)

Apple's high-end and sleek products continue to be popular, even after many years on the market -- in fact, the iPhone line will celebrate its 20th birthday in 2027. Meanwhile, the services ecosystem it has built offers numerous growth opportunities. As long as consumers appreciate good, attractive hardware and are willing to pay for the services attached to it, Apple is sure to continue thriving.

4. Coca-Cola

Coca-Cola is not only the maker of its famous beverage; it also boasts a clever business model that gives it extremely high margins. For the most part, the company only sells the foundational syrups for its drinks; it's up to other businesses to concoct and package them into the retail products you and I buy, or the drinks that get poured from the fountain machines.

This strategy produces net margins that consistently land in the mid-20% range. It also generates plenty of cash, which supports a relatively high dividend that increases every year. Coca-Cola, in fact, is a Dividend King, one of the select group of stocks that has declared dividend raises at least once annually for a minimum of 50 years running.

The world will surely never get tired of the sweet, fizzy taste of Coke, or any of the company's other beverages. Investors won't get tired of a stock that has not only risen by orders of magnitude over its long life, but one that dispenses a relatively high-yield dividend, paying out at 2.6% these days.

5. Moody's

Moody's doesn't have the name recognition of an Apple or Coca-Cola. What it does possess is a solid position among the so-called "big three" credit rating agencies, in an American economy that thrives on credit.

Over the past few years, a corporate borrowing boom, fueled by feverish refinancing activity, has lit a fire under the raters, as reflected in the fundamentals. Annual revenue rocketed from $6.2 billion in 2021 to $7.7 billion last year.

But Moody's isn't a one-dimensional company that only judges creditworthiness. Nearly half of its top line comes from Moody's Analytics, a sturdy data and information provider that draws predictable revenue through client subscriptions.

The company is another of those Berkshire holdings that lands well in the black year after year, and decade after decade. On that $7.7 billion in 2025 revenue, Moody's booked a headline net income of nearly $2.5 billion.

The beauty of its business model is that the steadiness and predictability of analytics mitigate the volatility of the ratings segment. With that strong one-two punch, this company will probably never be knocked down from its lofty perch.

American Express is an advertising partner of Motley Fool Money. Eric Volkman has positions in Apple. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, American Express, Apple, Berkshire Hathaway, and Moody's. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.