In this article, we discuss the 10 Best Financial Stocks to Buy According to Warren Buffett.
Known globally as the Oracle of Omaha, Warren Buffett is widely considered the most successful investor of the 20th and 21st centuries. Born in Omaha, Nebraska, in 1930, Buffett transformed a failing textile manufacturing company called Berkshire Hathaway into a massive, multi-billion-dollar multinational conglomerate, serving as its chief executive from 1965 through the end of 2025. Buffett’s investment philosophy is rooted in value investing, a discipline he learned from his mentor Benjamin Graham at Columbia Business School. Rather than speculating on short-term market fluctuations, Buffett focuses on buying high-quality companies with durable economic moats, clear competitive advantages that protect them from rivals, and holding them indefinitely.
READ ALSO: Jeff Bezos Stock Portfolio: Top 10 Stock Picks.
His strategy prioritized businesses with strong cash flows, pristine balance sheets, and trusted management teams, turning core holdings like American Express, Coca-Cola, and Apple into pillars of generational wealth. Under his decades of leadership, an initial $1,000 investment in Berkshire Hathaway grew into a staggering $48 million by the time he stepped down, massively outperforming the broader S&P 500. Despite accumulating a net worth that hovers around $148 billion, he famously continues to live in the same modest Omaha house he bought in 1958 and enjoys a notoriously simple diet anchored by Dairy Queen and Cherry Coke. Now in a historic new chapter following his formal transition of Berkshire’s day-to-day CEO reins to Greg Abel, Buffett’s enduring legacy is deeply tied to philanthropy.
READ ALSO: 10 Best Stocks to Buy Right Now According to AI.
Our Methodology
For this article, we selected stocks by combing through the 13F portfolio of Berkshire Hathaway at the end of the first quarter of 2026. Data for the hedge fund sentiment surrounding each stock was taken from Insider Monkey’s Q1 2026 database of 1041 elite hedge funds.
Why are we interested in the stocks that hedge funds pile into? The reason is simple: our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Insider Monkey’s quarterly newsletter’s strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 599.2% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 372 percentage points (see more details here).
Best Financial Stocks to Buy According to Warren Buffett
10. Citigroup Inc. (NYSE:C)
Berkshire Hathaway’s Stake: Sold Off
Citigroup Inc. (NYSE:C) was once a consistent feature in the 13F portfolio of Berkshire Hathaway. The fund first disclosed a stake in the company back in the first quarter of 2022. Back then, this position comprised 55 million shares. No activity was registered against this holding until the fourth quarter of 2024, when the fund trimmed this holding by close to 75% and reduced share ownership to around 14 million shares. In the first quarter of 2025, the fund declared that it had sold off this stake completely. Citi is a diversified financial service holding company that provides various financial products and services.
Citigroup Inc. (NYSE:C) completely rewrote its financial narrative with its first-quarter 2026 earnings report, posting fundamental metrics that shattered consensus Wall Street expectations. The firm reported a normalized EPS of $3.06, beating the consensus Wall Street forecast of $2.60 to $2.67 per share. This marked a 56% year-over-year surge. Total revenue hit $24.63 billion, up 14.1% year-over-year, representing the bank’s highest single-quarter revenue haul in ten years. Net income jumped 42% to $5.8 billion. Revenue in Citi’s high-margin Services division surged 17%, fueled by a 40% increase in new client mandates and a 12% rise in cross-border transaction volumes.
9. Mastercard Incorporated (NYSE:MA)
Berkshire Hathaway’s Stake: Sold Off
Mastercard Incorporated (NYSE:MA) was one of the long-term holdings of Berkshire Hathaway for the past many years. The fund had first disclosed a stake in the company back in the first quarter of 2011. Back then, this position comprised a little over 2.1 million shares. By the next quarter, the fund had almost doubled this holding to 4 million shares. By late 2014, this stake had grown to around 5.4 million shares. Thereafter, the fund trimmed this holding very slowly. By late 2021, the fund owned just under 4 million shares in the firm. No activity was registered against this stock until the first quarter of 2026 when the fund disclosed that it had sold off the entire stake it owned in the payments company.
Mastercard Incorporated (NYSE:MA) kicked off the fiscal year with an earnings outperformance that underscored the sheer scalability of its business model. The firm delivered net revenues of $8.40 billion in Q1 2026, posting a 16% year-over-year increase that easily topped Wall Street projections. Adjusted EPS skyrocketed 23% year-over-year to $4.60, up from $3.73 in Q1 2025, sailing past the consensus estimate of $4.41 to $4.53. The firm demonstrated incredible operating leverage, maintaining a 58% operating margin even while aggressively expanding strategic capital expenditure. Global cross-border volume surged 13%, fueled by a powerful mix of international travel recovery and cross-border digital merchant transactions.
8. Visa Inc. (NYSE:V)
Berkshire Hathaway’s Stake: Sold Off
Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) was one of the long-term holdings of Berkshire Hathaway for the past many years. The fund had first disclosed a stake in the company back in the third quarter of 2011. This position comprised a little over 9 million shares. In the next quarter, the fund grew this stake by 25% to 11.4 million shares. By mid-2012, this holding had been reduced by almost half to 6.2 million shares. From mid-2014 onwards, the fund started buying the stock again, growing the stake to around 10.5 million shares by 2016. By late 2021, the holding comprised a little over 8 million shares. No activity was registered against this stock until the first quarter of 2026, when the fund sold off this stake entirely.
READ MORE: 7 Best Lab-Grown Meat Stocks to Invest In.
Visa Inc. (NYSE:V) posted fiscal second quarter earnings in April, delivered operational metrics that completely dismantled macro-slowdown fears. The firm generated $11.2 billion in net revenue, marking a 17% year-over-year increase. Excluding the immediate post-pandemic recovery anomalies, this represents Visa’s strongest pure organic top-line growth rate since 2013. Adjusted EPS soared 20% year-over-year to $3.31, comfortably outstripping Wall Street consensus forecasts of $3.10. Visa successfully processed 66 billion transactions in just three months, a 9% year-over-year increase, translating to a massive $3.7 trillion in payments volume traveling across its proprietary network.
7. Jefferies Financial Group Inc. (NYSE:JEF)
Berkshire Hathaway’s Stake: $18 Million
Jefferies Financial Group Inc. (NYSE:JEF) is a relatively recent addition to the 13F portfolio of Berkshire Hathaway. The fund first disclosed a stake in the company in the third quarter of 2022. This position comprised over 453,000 shares. In the first quarter of 2023, the fund trimmed this holding by nearly 5% and brought share ownership down to around 433,000 shares. No buying or selling activity has been registered against this holding since then. Filings for the first quarter of 2026 show that the fund owned 433,000 shares in the company. Jefferies operates as an investment banking and capital markets firm.
Jefferies Financial Group Inc. (NYSE:JEF) is an investment banking powerhouse that is successfully capitalizing on the post-downturn dealmaking boom. The firm reported Q1 net revenues of $2.02 billion and net earnings of $155.7 million. Investment Banking net revenues hit $1.02 billion, propelled by near-record advisory fees and a massive surge in equity underwriting as initial public offerings (IPOs) and secondary market listings thawed. Its Capital Markets segment generated $779 million, driven by an impressive 37% year-over-year growth in Equities trading due to surging global client volumes. Ahead of its Q2 earnings release, top institutional desks including Morgan Stanley and Oppenheimer lifted their price targets.
6. Ally Financial Inc. (NYSE:ALLY)
Berkshire Hathaway’s Stake: $1.1 Billion
Ally Financial Inc. (NYSE:ALLY) is a relatively recent addition to the 13F portfolio of Berkshire Hathaway. The fund first disclosed a stake in the company in the first quarter of 2022. Back then, this position comprised just under 9 million shares. By the second quarter of 2022, the fund had increased this holding by over 234%, growing share ownership to 30 million shares. Apart from a minor 3% reduction in the first quarter of 2023, no other buying or selling activity has been registered against this stake since then. Filings for the first quarter of 2026 show that the fund owned 29 million shares in the firm.
In earnings for the first quarter of 2026, Ally Financial Inc. (NYSE:ALLY) posted an adjusted EPS of $1.11, representing a 90% surge year-over-year from $0.58, outpacing Wall Street consensus expectations of $0.94 by more than 18%. The company registered a GAAP net income of $319 million ($0.93 per share), engineering a year-over-year turnaround from the GAAP net loss of $225 million ($0.82 per share) recorded in Q1 2025. Total net revenue jumped 36% year-over-year to $2.10 billion, fueled by surging dealer financial services and elevated yields on new auto loans. Core return on tangible common equity (ROTCE) improved to 11.1%.
While we acknowledge the potential of ALLY to grow, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and have limited downside risk. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than ALLY and that has 100x upside potential, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.
Click to continue reading and see 5 Best Financial Stocks to Buy According to Warren Buffett.
READ NEXT: From Fired Researcher to $13.7 Billion King: How Leopold Aschenbrenner Broke the Hedge Fund World and 12 Best Stocks to Invest In According to Jim Simons’ Renaissance Technologies.
Disclosure: None. Follow Insider Monkey on Google News.
