Moody’s affirms Berkshire Hathaway Energy’s A3 rating with stable outlook

Bank of America has been a mainstay of the U.S. banking system for over a century. It has nearly $3.4 trillion in total assets spread across consumer banking, wealth management, and global investment banking. If there is a legal financial service to be provided, you can bet that Bank of America does it. This is why it has 40 million mobile banking users, people who have stuck around with the banking giant for many years.

Buffett loves investing in franchises that have long customer relationships, which describes a consumer banking giant like Bank of America perfectly.

Coming out of the great financial crisis, Bank of America has seen its earnings grow substantially. Net income is up close to 2,000% since 2011 when Buffett purchased. Like American Express, Bank of America has reduced its shares outstanding by around 30% in the last 10 years, which juiced shareholder returns.

Today, you can buy Bank of America at a reasonable price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of just under 15. This makes it a great blue chip stock you can buy alongside Buffett for your investing portfolio.

Should you invest $1,000 in American Express right now?

Before you buy stock in American Express, consider this:

The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and American Express wasn’t one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years.

Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $695,481!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $969,935!*

Now, it’s worth noting Stock Advisor’s total average return is 1,053% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 179% for the S&P 500. Don’t miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join Stock Advisor.

*Stock Advisor returns as of July 7, 2025

American Express is an advertising partner of Motley Fool Money. Bank of America is an advertising partner of Motley Fool Money. Brett Schafer has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Apple, Bank of America, Berkshire Hathaway, and Uber Technologies. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

27.3% of Warren Buffett's $258.7 Billion Portfolio Is Invested in These 2 American Stocks was originally published by The Motley Fool

The Buffett indicator again came close to hitting 200% in November 2021. Within a matter of weeks, the S&P 500 began to sink and eventually fell as much as 25%.

Will the stock market crash again soon?

These historical precedents aren't encouraging for investors. However, the Buffett indicator isn't great at predicting short-term stock market moves. For example, the indicator has been above its level in early 2000 (right before the dot-com bubble burst) for most of the period since 2018. During this time, the S&P 500 has soared more than 130%, albeit with significant volatility.

However, there's no getting around the fact that U.S. stocks are historically expensive. The Buffett indicator isn't the only metric that reflects this. The S&P 500 Shiller CAPE ratio, popularized by Yale economics professor Robert Shiller, is near its third-highest level ever.

Stock valuations don't tend to remain above historic levels for too long. Sooner or later, they will return to a more normal range. With the Buffett indicator at an all-time high, investors probably should brace themselves for what the stock market might do over the near term and almost certainly will do eventually -- revert to the mean.

Should you invest $1,000 in S&P 500 Index right now?

Before you buy stock in S&P 500 Index, consider this:

The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and S&P 500 Index wasn’t one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years.

Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $695,481!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $969,935!*

Now, it’s worth noting Stock Advisor’s total average return is 1,053% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 179% for the S&P 500. Don’t miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join Stock Advisor.

*Stock Advisor returns as of July 7, 2025

Keith Speights has positions in Berkshire Hathaway. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Berkshire Hathaway. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

The Buffett Indicator Is at Its Highest Level Ever. History Shows Investors Should Brace Themselves for What the Stock Market Might Do Next. was originally published by The Motley Fool

2. Alphabet (Google): The cheapest "Magnificent Seven" Stock

Whether due to regulatory issues or changes in the search space, Alphabet (NASDAQ: GOOGL) (NASDAQ: GOOG), the parent of Google, has been less than magnificent this year and has quickly become the cheapest "Magnificent Seven" stock by a fair margin, in terms of valuation.

It's hard to believe that a company that owns YouTube, Google Chrome, Gmail, Google Cloud, and Waymo could be trading at less than 20 times earnings, but here we are. Alphabet does face challenges. The Department of Justice sued Google for monopolistic search practices, allegations that a federal judge sided with. In a worst-case scenario, Google might be forced to sell its popular Chrome browser.

But perhaps in an even more worrisome secular trend for Google, the search business faces real challenges from artificial intelligence chatbots like ChatGPT, which are some of the fastest-growing businesses of all time. Many believe these players can perform search better and have started using them for their search needs over traditional search engines like Google. In 2024, revenue from Alphabet's Google Search and Other segment made up 57% of total revenue, so obviously, that business is everything for the company.

That said, Google has been able to pick up traction with its AI summaries at the top of most search queries, which are powered by Gemini and populate answers based on information from available sources, not dissimilar from what chatbots are doing. Google also has many businesses with high-growth potential, including an AI chip business that some analysts think is not being reflected in the stock price. I would bet on Alphabet overcoming many of its current obstacles.

Visa: One of the best moats

A good stock picker is always looking for companies with competitive moats that are difficult to penetrate -- cue the large payments network Visa (NYSE: V). If you haven't previously followed the company, it might surprise you to learn that Visa does not extend consumer credit despite being one of two brands seen on almost all debit and credit cards.

Visa runs the largest open payments system in the world, helping to facilitate the majority of debit and credit card transactions between issuing and acquiring banks. For its part in this process, Visa takes a very small percentage of each transaction, but that adds up quickly because the company is processing $13 trillion of payments a year.

Also, because Visa runs one of the largest payment networks in the world, it has a lot of pricing power and can set rules for the network. This kind of scale is not easy to achieve, which is why there are only a handful of large open payment networks in the world. This is Visa's moat. Furthermore, because Visa takes a small percentage of each transaction, it can hedge inflation -- even when prices go up, its percentage stays the same. Investors should keep in mind, however, that the company is susceptible to a recession, which can lead to less payment volume through the network as consumers and businesses tighten their belts.

Now, there has been some concern that the rise of stablecoins, digital assets pegged to a currency or commodity, could usurp the large payment rails like Visa and Mastercard. Stablecoins can enable people without bank accounts to transfer money to anyone in the world with internet access and with much lower fees than charged by Visa and Mastercard. This could be very helpful for people without access to the banking system or when it comes to cross-border payments.

However, many companies have tried to challenge Visa's dominance before, only to fail or eventually partner with the company. Visa's CEO, Ryan McInerney, recently said on CNBC that Visa has built infrastructure for stablecoins and that they will be an option for consumers, especially if they scale.

But scale is usually one of the reasons that competitors fail. A large-scale payments system not only needs to achieve widespread consumer adoption but also adoption by merchants. Visa also offers some features that could be trickier for stablecoins to replicate, such as partnering with consumer credit providers, giving consumers rewards for spending, and strong fraud prevention. It's way too early, in my opinion, to be concerned about Visa losing its dominance.

Should you invest $1,000 in Berkshire Hathaway right now?

Before you buy stock in Berkshire Hathaway, consider this:

The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and Berkshire Hathaway wasn’t one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years.

Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $699,558!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $976,677!*

Now, it’s worth noting Stock Advisor’s total average return is 1,060% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 180% for the S&P 500. Don’t miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join Stock Advisor.

*Stock Advisor returns as of July 7, 2025

Suzanne Frey, an executive at Alphabet, is a member of The Motley Fool’s board of directors. Randi Zuckerberg, a former director of market development and spokeswoman for Facebook and sister to Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg, is a member of The Motley Fool's board of directors. John Mackey, former CEO of Whole Foods Market, an Amazon subsidiary, is a member of The Motley Fool’s board of directors. Bram Berkowitz has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, Amazon, Apple, Berkshire Hathaway, Mastercard, Meta Platforms, Microsoft, Nvidia, Tesla, and Visa. The Motley Fool recommends the following options: long January 2026 $395 calls on Microsoft and short January 2026 $405 calls on Microsoft. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

S&P 500 Bull Run: 3 Stocks to Buy Now was originally published by The Motley Fool

First, Chevron is an integrated energy giant. That means that it has exposure to the entire energy value chain, from producing oil and natural gas, to transporting the commodities, to processing them into other products. Each segment works a little differently through the energy cycle. Having exposure to all of them helps to smooth out performance over time. On top of that diversification, Chevron also has a global portfolio. So it can shift its investments to where they will have the best opportunity for success.

That's a solid start, but there's another important factor. Chevron also has one of the strongest balance sheets in the energy patch, with a debt-to-equity ratio of just 0.2 times. That gives management the leeway to add debt during industry downturns so it can continue to support the business and dividend through hard times. When commodity prices recover, as they always have historically, it pays down its debt in preparation for the next downturn.

Buy Chevron when others are selling the stock

Chevron's stock is down around 20% from its 2022 highs, when oil prices were much higher. Long-term dividend investors shouldn't get too hung up on the downturn or the reasons why. Chevron is built to survive whatever comes its way. It probably makes more sense to just follow Buffett's "simple" approach and buy this well-run company while it is attractively priced and then hold it for the long term.

Should you invest $1,000 in Chevron right now?

Before you buy stock in Chevron, consider this:

The Motley Fool Stock Advisor analyst team just identified what they believe are the 10 best stocks for investors to buy now… and Chevron wasn’t one of them. The 10 stocks that made the cut could produce monster returns in the coming years.

Consider when Netflix made this list on December 17, 2004... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $699,558!* Or when Nvidia made this list on April 15, 2005... if you invested $1,000 at the time of our recommendation, you’d have $976,677!*

Now, it’s worth noting Stock Advisor’s total average return is 1,060% — a market-crushing outperformance compared to 180% for the S&P 500. Don’t miss out on the latest top 10 list, available when you join Stock Advisor.

*Stock Advisor returns as of June 30, 2025

Reuben Gregg Brewer has positions in TotalEnergies. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Berkshire Hathaway and Chevron. The Motley Fool recommends BP and Occidental Petroleum. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

1 Warren Buffett Stock to Buy Hand Over Fist in July was originally published by The Motley Fool