Bill Gates Portfolio: 7 Best Stocks to Buy Now | Investing
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At $38.9 billion in value, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust’s investment portfolio befits Bill Gates’ status as the fourth-richest individual in the world, as measured by the latest Bloomberg Billionaires Index. At $132 billion, Microsoft co-founder Gates clocks in just ahead of former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, at $128 billion.
The Gates Foundation Trust’s latest 13F filing on Nov. 14 with the Securities and Exchange Commission reflects its holdings through Sept. 30 and shows that the total portfolio has shed about $3 billion during a tough quarter. Gates doesn’t mind playing favorites when it comes to stocks: 96% of the trust’s assets are allocated to the 10 top holdings.
Managed by Cascade Asset Management Co., the trust’s portfolio is stocked with some of the most recognizable brand names on Wall Street – with a lesser-known stock or two tossed into the mix, especially in emerging investment areas like artificial intelligence and vaccines. Cascade Asset Management Co. also oversees Cascade Investment LLC, holder of Gates’ personal assets.
The Gates trust’s preferred menu consists of industrial stocks (comprising $15.6 billion of the $38.9 billion in investments), technology ($12.4 billion) and financial services ($7.9 billion), according to a Ticker Tracker analysis.
To get a better sense of the Gates trust’s overall investment strategy, here’s a closer look at the updated investment portfolio and the stocks that constitute the fund’s top seven selections:
| Stock | % of Portfolio | Market Value of Shares |
| Microsoft Corp. (ticker: MSFT) | 31.9% | $12.4 billion |
| Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (BRK.B) | 20.3% | $7.9 billion |
| Canadian National Railway Co. (CNI) | 15.3% | $5.9 billion |
| Waste Management Inc. (WM) | 13.8% | $5.4 billion |
| Caterpillar Inc. (CAT) | 5.2% | $2 billion |
| Deere & Co. (DE) | 3.8% | $1.5 billion |
| Ecolab Inc. (ECL) | 2.3% | $883.9 million |
With a market capitalization of $2.8 trillion, Microsoft is the largest company in the Gates Foundation Trust portfolio. In fact, the trust added 21,500 shares to its position, or 0.05%, in the third quarter. The stock is trading at $376.17 per share as of Nov. 16 – that’s up 58.2% on a year-to-date basis.
Microsoft has clearly taken the driver’s seat in the burgeoning artificial intelligence sector, which helped boost the technology giant’s latest quarterly revenues by 13% against 2022’s comparable quarter, to $56.5 billion. Profits came in at about 27% higher year over year, led by Microsoft’s Azure enterprise cloud computing division, which saw revenues rise by 29%.
Microsoft is going all-in on AI, steering $13 billion into its OpenAI arm, creator of the industry-leading ChatGPT generative AI platform. The company has also routed AI features into a bevy of its computing platforms, including Word, Azure, Excel and Microsoft365, signaling a major company shift into one of the fastest-growing technologies of the century.
“The development of AI is as fundamental as…
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