In a year that hasn’t been kind to many big-name stocks, Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway is standing near the top. Berkshire shares have posted a 17% return year-to-date, while the S&P 500 index is down 6%.
That performance places Berkshire among the top 10% of the U.S. market’s large-cap leaders, and the run has been getting Buffett more attention ahead of next weekend’s annual Berkshire Hathaway shareholder meeting in Omaha, Nebraska. It’s also good timing for the recently launched VistaShares Target 15 Berkshire Select Income ETF(OMAH), which holds the top 20 most heavily weighted stocks in Berkshire Hathaway, as well as shares of Berkshire Hathaway.
“It’s a really well-balanced portfolio chosen by the most successful investor the world has ever seen,” Adam Patti, CEO of VistaShares, said in an appearance this week on CNBC’s “ETF Edge.”
Berkshire’s outperformance of the S&P 500 isn’t limited to 2025. Buffett’s stock has tripled the performance of the market over the past year, and its 185% return over the past five years is more than double the performance of the S&P 500.
Berkshire Hathaway is one of 2025’s top performing stocks.
In addition to this long-term track record of success in the market, Berkshire Hathaway is getting a lot of attention right now for the record amount of cash Buffett is holding as he trimmed stakes in big stocks including Apple, which has proven to be a great strategy. The S&P 500 has experienced extreme short-term volatility since President Donald Trump’s inauguration on January 20. Even after a recent recovery, the S&P is still down 8% since the start of Trump’s second term.
“The market has been momentum driven for many years, the switch has flipped and we’re looking at quality in terms of exposure, and Berkshire Hathaway has performed incredibly well this year, handily outperforming the S&P 500,” said Patti.
Berkshire Hathaway famously doesn’t pay a dividend, with Buffett holding firm over many decades in the belief that he can re-invest cash to create more value for shareholders. In a letter to shareholders in February, Buffett wrote that Berkshire shareholders “can rest assured that we will forever deploy a substantial majority of their money in equities — mostly American equities.”
The lack of a dividend payment has been an issue over the years for some shareholders at Berkshire who do want income from the market, according to Patti, who added that his firm conducted research among investors in designing the ETF. “Who doesn’t want to invest like Buffett, but with income?” he said.
So, in addition to being tied to the performance of Berkshire and the stock picks of Buffett, the VistaShares Target 15 Berkshire Select Income ETF is designed to produce income of 15% annually through a strategy of selling call options and distributing monthly payments of 1.25% to shareholders. This income strategy has become more popular in the ETF space, with more asset managers launching funds to capture income opportunities and more investors adopting the approach amid market volatility.
Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan Chase, leaves the U.S. Capitol after a meeting with Republican members of the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee on the issue of de-banking on Feb. 13, 2025.
Dimon, the veteran CEO and chairman of the biggest U.S. bank by assets, explained his worldview during his bank’s annual investor day meeting in New York. He said he believes the risks of higher inflation and even stagflation aren’t properly represented by stock market values, which have staged a comeback from lows in April.
“We have huge deficits; we have what I consider almost complacent central banks,” Dimon said. “You all think they can manage all this. I don’t think” they can, he said.
“My own view is people feel pretty good because you haven’t seen effective tariffs” yet, Dimon said. “The market came down 10%, [it’s] back up 10%; that’s an extraordinary amount of complacency.”
Dimon’s comments follow Moody’s rating agency downgrading the U.S. credit rating on Friday over concerns about the government’s growing debt burden. Markets have been whipsawed the past few months over worries that President Donald Trump‘s trade policies will raise inflation and slow the world’s largest economy.
Dimon said Monday that he believed Wall Street earnings estimates for S&P 500 companies, which have already declined in the first weeks of Trump’s trade policies, will fall further as companies pull or lower guidance amid the uncertainty.
In six months, those projections will fall to 0% earnings growth after starting the year at around 12%, Dimon said. If that were to happen, stocks prices will likely fall.
“I think earnings estimates will come down, which means PE will come down,” Dimon said, referring to the “price to earnings” ratio tracked closely by stock market analysts.
The odds of stagflation, “which is basically a recession with inflation,” are roughly double what the market thinks, Dimon added.
Separately, one of Dimon’s top deputies said that corporate clients are still in “wait-and-see” mode when it comes to acquisitions and other deals.
Investment banking revenue is headed for a “mid-teens” percentage decline in the second quarter compared with the year-earlier period, while trading revenue was trending higher by a “mid-to-high” single digit percentage, said Troy Rohrbaugh, a co-head of the firm’s commercial and investment bank.
On the ever-present question of Dimon’s timeline to hand over the CEO reins to one of his deputies, Dimon said that nothing changed from his guidance last year, when he said he would likely remain for less than five more years.
“If I’m here for four more years, and maybe two more” as executive chairman, Dimon said, “that’s a long time.”
Of all the executive presentations given Monday, consumer banking chief Marianne Lake had the longest speaking time at a full hour. She is considered a top successor candidate, especially after Chief Operating Officer Jennifer Piepszak said she would not be seeking the top job.
Check out the companies making headlines in midday trading. UnitedHealth — The health insurer’s stock popped roughly 7% as investors scooped up shares of the beaten-down name, which lost 23% last week. UnitedHealth had suspended its 2025 guidance, announced that its CEO is stepping down and is reportedly the subject of a U.S. Department of Justice investigation . Reddit — Shares of the social media stock dropped more than 4% following a downgrade to equal weight from overweight at Wells Fargo. The firm said search traffic disruptions at Reddit are likely to become lasting as Google’s search integrates full artificial intelligence capabilities. Tesla , Palantir — Shares of retail investor favorites Tesla and Palantir each slid more than 3% as key tech stocks led Monday’s stock market losses. Regeneron Pharmaceuticals — Shares of the drugmaker dropped about 1% after the company announced it had agreed to pay $256 million to buy most of the assets of genetic data company 23andMe out of bankruptcy. Regeneron’s deal does not include Lemonaid Health, 23andMe’s telehealth subsidiary. Bath & Body Works — Shares ticked 1% lower after the personal care retailer said CEO Gina Boswell would step down immediately. The company said former Nike executive Daniel Heaf would replace her. Alibaba — U.S.-listed shares of the Chinese e-commerce giant traded 1% lower after the New York Times reported that the Trump administration has raised concerns about Apple’ s plan to use Alibaba’s A.I. on iPhones in China. TXNM Energy — Shares of the energy company popped 7% after TXNM agreed to be acquired by Blackstone’s infrastructure unit. TXNM Energy shareholders will receive $61.25 in cash for each share as part of the deal. — CNBC’s Alex Harring, Jesse Pound and Michelle Fox contributed reporting.
Sebastian Siemiatkowski, CEO of Klarna, speaking at a fintech event in London on Monday, April 4, 2022.
Chris Ratcliffe | Bloomberg via Getty Images
Klarna saw its losses jump in the first quarter as the popular buy now, pay later firm applies the brakes on a hotly anticipated U.S. initial public offering.
The Swedish payments startup said its net loss for the first three months of 2025 totaled $99 million — significantly worse than the $47 million loss it reported a year ago. Klarna said this was due to several one-off costs related to depreciation, share-based payments and restructuring.
Revenues at the firm increased 13% year-over-year to $701 million. Klarna said it now has 100 million active users and 724,00 merchant partners globally.
It comes as Klarna remains in pause mode regarding a highly anticipated U.S. IPO that was at one stage set to value the SoftBank-backed company at over $15 billion.
Klarna put its IPO plans on hold last month due to market turbulence caused by President Donald Trump’s sweeping tariff plans. Online ticketing platform StubHub also put its IPO plans on ice.
Prior to the IPO delay, Klarna had been on a marketing blitz touting itself as an artificial intelligence-powered fintech. The company partnered up with ChatGPT maker OpenAI in 2023. A year later, Klarna used OpenAI technology to create an AI customer service assistant.
Last week, Klarna CEO Sebastian Siemiatkowski said the company was able to shrink its headcount by about 40%, in part due to investments in AI.