In 2020, Buffett’s investment vehicle announced that it had acquired positions of Japan’s five largest trading companies. The stakes are worth a little more than 5% of each company, about $6.25 billion in total. At the time, Berkshire Hathaway signaled that it was part of a long-term strategy, and the company was open to increasing its stake under the right circumstances.

Fast forward five years, and the Omaha-based giant has added to its holdings—many timesin fact, as the strong growth of the stock market in Japan saw Buffett’s bet more than paid off. Berkshire’s Japanese portfolio is now worth more than $30 billion, which has cost the company $24 billion in half a decade.

These numbers are the result of two wise calls by Buffett on stocks that ended up being undervalued, as well as recent policy changes in Japan, including sweeping corporate governance reforms and new pro-growth government rules and spending that benefit technology companies. But it also tells where in the world the greatest return on investment can be made. While US stocks haven’t been sluggish in the past year, international equivalents have generally outperformed them, lending fuel to recent “Sell ​​America” trend as investors begin to reduce exposure to US assets. While Berkshire Hathaway remains heavily invested in America, one of Buffett’s last big bets shows the upside of going a little global.

Right place, right time

Beginning in 2019, Berkshire began building stakes in five major Japanese “sogo shosha” companies, large and diverse companies active in everything from energy to electronics. Buffett raised the stake in his company in 2023and did it again last year.

At the time, the move was not immediately obvious as a slam dunk. Japan’s stock market had barely budged in nearly 30 years when Berkshire first announced its position, an economic quagmire known as “lost decades” after 1989, when an asset market crash began a long period of stagnant growth.

Buffett financed most of the bet with cheap debt denominated in Japanese yen, which cost him about 1% interest, while the trading houses he invested in paid dividends of about 4%, which covered costs.

Political winds have also helped Buffett’s investments. After decades of strict economic management, Japan has, in the past few years, adopted pro-growth and deregulatory policies that have sent its stock market rocketing to record highs. Sanae Takaichi, Japan’s prime minister since October, even called for an end to “excessive fiscal austerity” a center piece in his snap election this month. That campaign gave his party a landslide victory and a legislative supermajority, as well as a historic mandate to enact his economic agenda.

The changing landscape of Japan’s economic policy has some question marks. The country entered a technical economy in 2024 on the back of high inflation and weak domestic demand, and have flow of risk to do so again in the years since. And Takaichi’s stimulus-heavy prescription for the economy has shaken bond vigilanteswhile analysts also warn about the possibility of worsening debt crisis.

But these concerns did little to detract from Buffett’s victory, which underscored how well international markets have fared over the past year compared to the U.S. By 2025, overseas stock markets are up 28%, outpacing the S&P 500’s 16%. The Nikkei, Japan’s stock market index, also significantly outperformed the S&P 500, which rose 38.6% last year.

A weak dollar, trade tensions, and the concentration of technology in the US drove large capital flows abroad last year, a trend that will continue until 2026. Berkshire Hathaway is still, for the most part, investing in US assets—but it is also unlikely to lose its positions in Japan anytime soon.

“It’s been pretty good so far, but we’ve been in these stocks 10, 20 years,” Buffett SPOKE CNBC in 2023 of his Japan holdings.