How to Invest Like Billionaire Microsoft Founder Bill Gates with Just $100
Bill Gates is the world's second-richest billionaire. But you don't have to be rich to invest like him. All you need is $100. | Source: AP Photo / Mark Lennihan
- You might not be a billionaire like Bill Gates, but that doesn’t mean you can’t invest like him.
- As a non-profit organization, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust must disclose its investment portfolio.
- Thanks to Cash App’s new fractional stock investing feature, you can mimic this portfolio with as little as $100 – or even less!
Bill Gates briefly ranked as the world’s richest person again after Amazon’s stock took a tumble this week. That temporarily brought Jeff Bezos’ nearly 24-month reign at the top of the rich list to an end. Bezos’ divorce earlier this year and an Amazon stock (NASDAQ:AMZN) slump delivered the one-two punch that knocked him down to second place.
As the Amazon founder’s fortunes declined in 2019, Bill Gates enjoyed a substantial increase in personal wealth. One reason for that is a blowout year for Microsoft stock (NASDAQ:MSFT) . But another is Gates’ smart investments in other companies. With 60% of his portfolio in equities, Bill Gates is very much a stock market bull.
Gates was the richest person in the world for 18 out of the 22 years from 1995 through 2017. In 2009, he partnered with another person to hold the distinction, Warren Buffett, to create the Giving Pledge. Together the duo has amassed billions of dollars for philanthropy, and Gates is very deliberate in how he invests the money.
How to Structure Your Portfolio Like Bill Gates Does
The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation invests tens of billions of dollars in equities to grow its funds for global health, farming, and sanitation initiatives.
Here’s how to invest $100 to get the same returns as the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation’s stock portfolio.
Now that Cash App has brought fractional share investing to anyone with a smartphone and an internet connection, you can buy and hold as little as one dollar’s worth of publicly traded stocks.
So all you need to know is the cash-weighted percentage allocation of the equities held by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Trust. The trust reports this information publicly in its quarterly SEC 13F filing.
Just divide up your $100 among these holdings.
Of course, you can approximate their portfolio with $200, a thousand dollars, or any amount that you’d like to invest.
Divide $100 Among These Value Stocks
To invest $100 like Bill Gates, simply buy:
- $50 worth of Berkshire Hathaway Class B shares (NYSE:BRK.B)
- $11 worth of Waste Management Inc. (NYSE:WM)
- $8 worth of Canadian National Railway (NYSE:CNI)
- $8 worth of Caterpillar Inc. (NYSE:CAT)
- $6 worth of Walmart (NYSE:WMT)
- $4 worth of Ecolab Inc. (NYSE:ECL)
- $4 worth of Crown Castle International (NYSE:CCI)
- $3 worth of FedEx Corporation (NYSE:FDX)
- $2 worth of UPS (NYSE:UPS)
- $2 worth of Coca-Cola Femsa SAB de CV (NYSE:KOF)
- $1 worth of Grupo Televisa SAB (NYSE: TV)
- $1 worth of Liberty Global PLC Class A (NASDAQ:LBTYA)
Notice what Gates is doing here.
His multi-billion dollar legacy charity is heavily invested in dividend-paying shares. (Although Berkshire doesn’t pay dividends, much of its holdings do.) He’s also recession-proofed the foundation’s holdings with defensive investments like Waste Management, Canadian National Railway, and Walmart. If you want to invest in stable, long-term, value stocks, you can follow Bill Gates’ lead with as little as $100.
Disclaimer: The above should not be considered trading or investment advice from CCN.com.
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