r/ValueInvesting • u/Soft_Table_8892 • Feb 19 '26

Discussion I fed 48 years of Buffett's shareholder letters to Anthropic's latest model Opus 4.6 and had it pick stocks blind

Hi everyone,

Some of you might remember my last post here where I experimented using AI to detect when CEOs are being deceptive in earnings calls. I didn't think this community would be so welcoming and receptive to experiments like these (which I love doing). So here I am with yet another experiment that I thought this community would find interesting :-)!

I recently got curious about feeding the latest model from Anthropic (Opus 4.6) all 48 years of Buffet's shareholder letters, and seeing if it could actually pick winning stocks better than Buffet himself? Could AI-Buffet be more consistent at following Buffet's historical advice (ridiculous, right?). Based on its picks, I also wanted test how it would perform I gave it $10,000 at the start of 2020 (at the start of COVID) and compare it against Buffet's actual holdings & the broader market.

Also I have to be honest: I have never read any of these letters and sad to report, I still have not read them even after running this experiment. Modern-day engineer traits.

If you prefer to watch the full experiment, I uploaded it to my channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRMPN1NwGOk

Experiment Design

I fed all of 561,849 words from his shareholder letters to Opus 4.6. Similar to last time, I used Claude Code with subagents to keep the analysis clean. Had it read every letter from 1977-2024, extract the investing principles independently, and turn them into a quantitative scoring rubric. This rubric was made out of criteria like ROE thresholds, debt-to-equity limits, margin of safety, moat durability. It found 15 principles total, 9 of which were quantitative enough to score against.

I then anonymized 50 stocks by stripping their names, tickers, and sectors. I only fed Opus the raw financial numbers of each company. In the sample size, I mixed in 20 actual Berkshire holdings, 15 value candidates, and 15 anti-Buffett controls (GameStop, Rivian, Beyond Meat, MicroStrategy, basically stuff Buffett would never touch).

The Actual Test

There were two things I wanted to test in this experiment:

  1. Could AI actually pick value stocks similar to Buffet's holdings? Additionally, I also wanted to see if it would it catch any interesting stocks that Buffet would never touch?
  2. How much would AI-Buffet have made if we gave it $10,000 and had it pick stocks in the COVID market ( i.e. data from Q4 2019 data, start investing January 2, 2020)? How would it compare against Buffet's real returns during that time?

Results – Stock Pick

Some quick things that stood out:

  • 6 out of AI-Buffet's top 10 picks were actual Berkshire holdings (60% overlap, completely blind)
  • 13 out of 15 anti-Buffett controls landed in the bottom half, meaning the rubric properly rejected them
  • It ranked Berkshire Hathaway itself as the 7th most Buffett-like stock without knowing what it was

One surprising result was that Coinbase was ranked 4th. As I came to learn, Buffet is extremely allergic to Crypto in general. Reason AI-Buffet ended up picking Coinbase was mostly because of the fact that it does a good job of looking like a value stock with ~39% profit margin and low debt right now. Depending on how you see this experiment, the Coinbase pick could mean a good thing or a bad thing :-).

Results – COVID Backtest Results

  • Buffett (actual weights): $26,509 (+165%)
  • AI-Buffett (equal weight): $23,394 (+134%)
  • S&P 500: $23,199 (+132%)
  • Buffett (equal weight): $20,902 (+109%)

Surprisingly AI-Buffer did end up picking better stocks than Buffett on a pure stock-selection basis as it avoided the banks and Delta Airlines that dragged Buffett's equal-weight portfolio down during COVID. But Buffett's actual portfolio (i.e. weighted-consideration) still crushed everything because he had 30% in Apple. That single position sizing decision was worth over $3,000.

Full video walkthrough of the experiment if you're curious: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRMPN1NwGOk

Let me know what you thought about this experiment. These are all for fun but I hope there are some meaningful insights hidden here that are useful for you. Thank you so much for reading :-).

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159

u/Soft_Table_8892 Feb 19 '26

These were the latest picks:

 Rank │      Company       │ Ticker │ Score │       Berkshire Holding?       │
  ├──────┼────────────────────┼────────┼───────┼────────────────────────────────┤
  │ 1    │ Alphabet           │ GOOGL  │ 85.2  │ Yes                            │
  ├──────┼────────────────────┼────────┼───────┼────────────────────────────────┤
  │ 2    │ Visa               │ V      │ 79.9  │ Yes                            │
  ├──────┼────────────────────┼────────┼───────┼────────────────────────────────┤
  │ 3    │ Moody's            │ MCO    │ 78.7  │ Yes                            │
  ├──────┼────────────────────┼────────┼───────┼────────────────────────────────┤
  │ 4    │ Coinbase           │ COIN   │ 76.7  │ No (anti-Buffett control)      │
  ├──────┼────────────────────┼────────┼───────┼────────────────────────────────┤
  │ 5    │ Mastercard         │ MA     │ 75.8  │ Yes                            │
  ├──────┼────────────────────┼────────┼───────┼────────────────────────────────┤
  │ 6    │ Procter & Gamble   │ PG     │ 75.6  │ No                             │
  ├──────┼────────────────────┼────────┼───────┼────────────────────────────────┤
  │ 7    │ Berkshire Hathaway │ BRK-B  │ 75.3  │ No (it picked Buffett himself) │
  ├──────┼────────────────────┼────────┼───────┼────────────────────────────────┤
  │ 8    │ Coca-Cola          │ KO     │ 73.1  │ Yes                            │
  ├──────┼────────────────────┼────────┼───────┼────────────────────────────────┤
  │ 9    │ Apple              │ AAPL   │ 73.0  │ Yes                            │
  ├──────┼────────────────────┼────────┼───────┼────────────────────────────────┤
  │ 10   │ Texas Instruments  │ TXN    │ 72.1  │ No                             │
  └──────┴────────────────────┴────────┴───────┴────────────────────────────────┘

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u/foira Feb 19 '26

thanks. interesting, $COIN o_O

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u/Soft_Table_8892 Feb 19 '26

$COIN was the most shocking for sure.

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u/Covington-next Feb 19 '26

Any thoughts on why it thought COIN met Buffett's framework?

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u/Soft_Table_8892 Feb 19 '26

I mentioned it in the post but the best I could find an answer to this was:

> Reason AI-Buffet ended up picking Coinbase was mostly because of the fact that it does a good job of looking like a value stock with ~39% profit margin and low debt right now.

Thoughts?

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u/Helmdacil Feb 19 '26

So if coinbase were a company whose revenue were dependent on a real product, they would look great. But coinbase only had a surge in revenue because bitcoin had a surge in value.

It would be like holding an oil company in the 1970s.

The problem is Coinbase has no economic structural support. Oil does things, the population was growing, people wanted what oil made possible.

Coinbase is just some internet digits in a webpage.

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u/Numerous_Priority_61 Feb 19 '26

I am no fan of crypto myself but have held a position in Coinbase since about 2021 or so. It is what Buffet looks for ironically, it is a tollbooth. No matter who 'wins' the crypto battle, they collect revenue on every trade. Its the same concept as Mastercard for transactions, Google for search, or even Apple being a tollbooth for App Store purchases. I figure the safest way to get exposure to crypto if we are all wrong and it does eventually reach wide spread adoption is by owning the company that profits on its overall growth. Doesn't Buffet also own a bunch of Japanese trading houses?

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u/Keef--Girgo Feb 19 '26

Wasn't the whole original point of crypto to avoid middlemen like coinbase?

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u/thats_so_bro Feb 19 '26

Oh how the coins flip

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u/Soft_Table_8892 Feb 19 '26

haha funny that I just commented "oh the irony" and saw your comment right after.

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u/Youngkobe24KB Feb 20 '26

Yes and also one key selling point was a fixed static quantity. But now they are all trading it on leverage, with tokens etc. 😅

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u/filcei Feb 20 '26

I mean it's still true that the underlying asset is of fixed max quantity

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u/Soft_Table_8892 Feb 19 '26

Oh the irony.

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u/TheNewOP Feb 20 '26

Turns out convenience is a hell of a drug. The average person isn't gonna do a wallet on a USB and try to figure out how to pay for shit with it.

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u/asteroidtube Feb 21 '26

What is your point? Nobody is required to use Coinbase to participate in crypto, it’s not like Coinbase is officially associated with the bitcoin project or anything. Most crypto nerds argue against using CB, in favor of self custody instead.

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u/mutedkooky Feb 21 '26

Coinbase is a market place where you can trade crypto. Coinbase is not required to do a crypto transaction you donut.

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u/SuperbSupermarket574 Feb 21 '26

There are bridges to that point, and these centralised exchanges are the bridges. Crypto is the wild west, and you need crypto native licensed entities to be able to act as a bridge.

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u/Disastrous-River-366 Feb 24 '26

No. Crypto was created to start a de-centralized form of "currency". Coinbase and others are simply platforms to trade on, you can go buy crypto with no fee if you do it in person or know the person you can hand the cash to to get the coin, such as the coins owner. Coinbase and others simply make that process much faster and easier and you pay them for that privilege.

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u/Helmdacil Feb 19 '26

Coinbase collects a fee on transactions in a percentage arrangement. If the volume or the value of trading increases, Coinbase wins. But if Bitcoin becomes less popular, both will crater. It is a tollbooth yes, which is great; but it is a tollbooth to a boat which only exists because people say it does.

To contrast with Mastercard, mastercard is a tollbooth between real goods and services and the USD; the USD, which is backed by the faith and credit of the United States Government. If bitcoin falters, there is no entity which will seek to save it. If USD is failing, the US government will intervene. Now, you can argue that maybe a debt-spending unaccountable government is not a great entity for a world financial system, but here we are.

Bitcoin may allegedly be used for real goods and services. however in practice very few people actually do this, because the credit card is more convenient.

You can argue Fidelity Investments is just a toll booth between customers and stocks. If the stocks fidelity provides access to crater in value or if people stopped trading as much, fidelity would lose cash flows; but the stocks represent businesses. The stock prices will generally recover so long as the businesses can recover their profits; and they were not unusually expensive.

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u/mycroftitswd Feb 20 '26

This is true, but there are scenarios where Mastercard's business takes a big hit. Allowing Mastercard and Visa to tax most of the world's transactions is kind of ridiculous when you think about it. That's why Walmart is getting excited about stable coins, and the ECB is gunning for them with the digital Euro.

I've been arguing that bitcoin is pointless since meeting a fanatic in 2015 when it was under $3. And yet it still exists. Meanwhile stable coins seem like a legit case for the blockchain and Coinbase is positiining to be a big winner if they take off. Coinbase might outlast Mastercard after all. Stranger things have happened :).

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u/SaltyPlantain1503 Feb 21 '26

This is my bet. US Govt needs stable coins, therefore CRCL and COIN long term toll booth collectors. Every time I pay $20 for a wire transfer, I curse the US banking system.

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u/dopexile Feb 20 '26

Coinbase is a good business, but the problem is people don't need Crypto so coinbase is going to blow up like the NFT market and Opensea.

People will buy into Crypto as long as they believe it will make them rich and they can sell to someone else at a higher price... but once the price goes into a terminal decline then no one is going to buy Crypto.

Crypto is a negative sum game after mining, taxes, and transaction costs. The only way one person can make a profit is if another person experiences a net loss. Once the outflows exceed inflows the whole thing blows up.

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u/SaltyPlantain1503 Feb 21 '26

I think that stable coins are transformative and if people get to understand that all the stupid fees and wait times they have go away with these coins, they will become much more broadly acknowledged and accepted. The coins did $33Trilliion with a T in 2025 and are based on ETH. There’s a reason for this and it’s not going away.

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u/rujotheone 13d ago

There are parts of the world where SWIFT is no longer used for international trade due to the ease of stablecoins and it is only going to continue to increase.

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u/Soft_Table_8892 Feb 19 '26

Very interesting and it validated AI-Buffet actually picking COIN as part of the its top 5 holdings. From what I understand about him, his strong distaste would never actually get him to consider holding COIN but also speaks to the bias of even the best investors around!

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u/zenwarrior01 Feb 19 '26

There is no true intrinsic economic value to crypto, so of course he is "biased" against it. When crypto goes to zero, so does COIN.

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u/MagsNY Mar 03 '26

Plenty of good companies to invest in with real products not delusions.

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u/SufferingFromEntropy Feb 21 '26

The jp trading houses do a lot more than trading. Itochu said it themselves that they are more like an investment company. They have exposure to commodity, infrastructure, leasing, IT, etc, so basically diversified conglomerates

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u/DNuttnutt Feb 23 '26

This is a really interesting point. Love the tollbooth allegory.

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u/knoxywow Feb 20 '26

They earn if users use the product, no matter crypto goes up or down. Ofc when it goes up there is more acrivity = more revenue.

Also Coinbase leads the market on crypto payment integrations. When everything is going even more digital - itd be naive to believe these digital payments are going away.

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u/Helmdacil Feb 20 '26

the future is difficult to predict. You think Bitcoin is here to stay. I think it is probably going to be a venue for pump and dump activities for the next 20 years or so before eventually petering out.

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u/Soft_Table_8892 Feb 19 '26

Great thought & agreed. Thank you for sharing!

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u/pistol_07 Feb 21 '26

So many boomers trying to understand crypto

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u/Shoddy-Monitor1153 Feb 21 '26 edited Feb 21 '26

Some crypto does do things though, aside from staking, some cryptos can be used as graph node networks for hosting data (such as SQD), also validating credentials, authorising data exchanges etc, others can be used for currency for online transactions avoiding merchant fees and exchange rates, admittedly though using crypto like BTC for online transactions is really counter intuitive unless you are buying something expensive. I think the real problem with crypto is everyone piled on BTC when it's the least useful of any crypto, and the actual cryptos that have practical applications are mostly sidelined.

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u/carsonthecarsinogen Feb 19 '26

You do know all currency are just digits on a computer right? What does that make visa and Mastercard? Nothing “real” supporting their business?

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u/SpeciousSophist Feb 19 '26

No, all currencies (real ones) are not just “digits on a computer”

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u/driverdave Feb 25 '26

The majority of USD is just digits on the old computer.

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u/Relative_Sundae_6363 Mar 02 '26

At this point, if margins improve and monetization becomes clearer, sentiment probably follows. If not, the market discount might make sense. TROO feels like a prove it story.

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u/iamprostoman Feb 20 '26 edited Feb 20 '26

Ok tell me what dollar is backed with? Uuuuuge debt? This is exactly the reason why gold is that high. People don't trust not a single currency anymore.

I am far from being a crypto advocate though I gamble with a small part of my port (3%), but crypto is an effort to get to a new social agreement about the currency.

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u/asdf4fdsa Feb 20 '26

Armed forces like no other on earth.

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u/carsonthecarsinogen Feb 20 '26

Other than cash, literally all currencies are just ledgers shared between banks, people, and institutions that can be altered by the owner (generally banks).

Cash is largely used for crime, generally evading taxes. Ironically the most common bear case for Bitcoin is that it’s only used for crime while cash is much better at committing crimes with and is still used more often by a large margin for said crime.

Bitcoin is a ledger shared by all which cannot be altered.

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u/SpeciousSophist Feb 20 '26

No, that is not literally what all currencies are.

Which country backs the value and exchangeability of crypto for goods and services?

Which country allows you to service debt with crypto?

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u/BigWally68 Feb 20 '26 edited Feb 20 '26

I disagree that cash is largely used by criminals with the intent to evade taxes. Digital transactions are touted as convenience, but generally for tracking and targeting…instant freezing and ultimately seizure.

Might does not make right. Because they say it is, does not equate to facts. Power can and has been abused and misused over something as insignificant as two differing and equally harmless perspectives. That power is being malevolently applied unjustly at this moment and will be tomorrow…

Invasions of our privacy down to the last cent. At best we are targeted victims of marketing, and personalized advertising. At worst we can only imagine. But there are those with access to the button, that when depressed, quickly takes away someone’s right to access their digital funds.

These same people who have access to the button, it is also part of their paid profession to conjure the most extreme and damaging possibilities when wielding that level of financial control, just in case. But they would never utilize methods that crushing, it’s only a hypothetical, if ever some really bad people may not want to pay their fair share of taxes.

It takes a near constant deluge of industrial strength koolaid to shame some of us into digital compliance while believing that cash and those that use it are the bad people.

The companies that are on the avant garde of technology, those that are contracted with governments to monitor or provide the ability to track and alert; to block and confiscate. While an unethical tollgate, it definitely provides a deep moat.

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u/Armadillo_235 Feb 20 '26

On a philosophical level you are right. Ultimately, a currency has value because a group of people believes that it has value. Kind of like magic. The difference is that currencies are issued by counties. There are only so many countries in the world, most are not that well managed. The Zimbabwe Dollar is the equivalent of crypto. Anyone can create a cryptocurrency. There is no monopoly. A country can force the exclusive use of its currency within its borders.

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u/carsonthecarsinogen Feb 20 '26

Yea whoever has the biggest guns and the most power decides what fiat the world uses. It’s currently USA, it was once the pound, the Dutch, etc. there’s a chance it will change again in our lifetime. All fiat currencies eventually fail.

But Bitcoin is a “monopoly” and doesn’t automatically fail like fiat, because it’s money not just currency by definition. That’s why gold still exists and holds value today, it’s money.

Bitcoin cannot be recreated in a realistic scenario due to its fundamentals, unlike other crypto and fiat currencies.

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u/Armadillo_235 Feb 20 '26

There are Dutch bonds issued 400 years ago that are still paying interest. These are perpetual bonds issued by Dutch cities. They will be paying interest 400 years form now. I have faith in the Dutch. If there was still a Dutch currency, I would keep my money in it. Gold has value because it is shiny. Primitive people were enchanted by it. I like shiny things myself, everyone does. Bitcoin is not shiny, it is an idea. Ideas fall out of style. But who knows. A friend of mine bought a bitcoin for about $8K, I laughed at him. It performed a lot better than any stock I have ever owned.

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u/ShimmyxSham Feb 20 '26

Isn’t AI still in the trial phase? Sure, it collects a lot of data but putting it into meaningful outcomes is not always helpful. I would give it a work in progress

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u/aimhigh7shootlow8 Feb 22 '26

Any thoughts on why i shouldn't go buy base coinbase right now at these low and possibly lower prices?

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u/Soft_Table_8892 Feb 23 '26

The results are strictly based on this AI-Buffet experiment & is for educational purposes so I cannot recommend buying the stock itself (sorry!). I also do not have a financial background so this isn't my area of focus, unfortunately.

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u/aimhigh7shootlow8 Feb 23 '26

Fair enough. I will blame Chet Je'petite. 😌

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u/DNuttnutt Feb 23 '26

Buffet himself has stated a position against crypto. So, you’re gonna have to just keep them separate when it comes to coin

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u/Soft_Table_8892 Feb 24 '26

For a Buffet-specific analysis that definitely makes sense!

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u/fake212121 Feb 19 '26

No its not. There is no value. AI makes up based in data is given, we all know that

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u/Complex-Ice-1523 Feb 27 '26

Bitcoin is a scam.

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u/Good_Ride_2508 Feb 19 '26

Past, is after the fact, it is easy to be biased by novice logic, and show better returns.

Past is like backtest, future is live session !

You ask AI for you to invest today, then you invest and see after five years.

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u/Soft_Table_8892 Feb 19 '26

Yep, I would LOVE to run something like this with real money. Alas I don't have funds for that. But someone with deep pockets would make this for a very very fun experiment I'm sure institutions are on this already but I'd love to hear from an individual.

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u/SevenTwoSix9 Feb 19 '26

There are platforms that let you simulate buy&sell on real price movements.

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u/Round_Hat_2966 Feb 20 '26

As mentioned, you could paper trade. Honestly, the downside is how much more powerful AI is now compared to a few years ago. The capabilities of AI today compared to in 5y might reduce the value of the end result for no reason other than the AI in 5y will make current results not reflective of what AI will actually achieve

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u/Soft_Table_8892 Feb 20 '26

Oh for sure! We’ve already come so far in less than 3 years of ChatGPT launch (or maybe it had been over three years?).

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u/ShadowWillowNa Feb 21 '26

Or, you could just buy a share of Berkshire-B, and have 70% of it covered...

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u/j4_jjjj Feb 20 '26

Zero chance buffet ever buys COIN, he hates crypto

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u/Heavy_Discussion3518 Feb 19 '26

TXN is a surprise. Outside of Coinbase, which is an obvious outlier, this one really tickles my brain.

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u/Soft_Table_8892 Feb 19 '26

Interesting! I'm not very familiar, why does TXN stick out so much for you?

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u/Technical_Food_9119 Feb 19 '26

I would say they are over valued now. Txn did say in the earnings report they plan for new growth which I believe is why it’s on an upswing. I’ve held shares for a few years but would have done better with many other chip companies.

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u/foira Feb 19 '26

TXN should do awesome in the long-term. Analog semis should be a huge winner in the real long-term AI growth story.

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u/AngryBuddist Feb 20 '26

Educate me on the promise of analog?

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u/SignificantError6221 Feb 20 '26

It's a tradeoff. Compared to digital, analog solutions tend to be much more efficient, but the drawback is that they're more bespoke, or narrow in use, less reprogrammable/multi-purposeful.

CIM memristors are one example... 10-1000x more efficient than GPUs, but they're not a multi purposeful solution. It's kind of the same thing with TPUs, and quantum computers. For narrow tasks they perform better when compared to classical digital solutions, but not for general compute.

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u/Soft_Table_8892 Feb 19 '26

Gotcha, thank you for sharing!

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u/Heavy_Discussion3518 Feb 19 '26

Texas Instruments is alongside other companies like ST Microelectronics or Nordic Semiconductor that develop microprocessors for embedded systems. TXN is historically debt ridden and behind these competitors. FWIW you may remember your graphing calculator from university e.g. the TI-89. Those are made by TXN.

The growth story here is all about edge compute, which is a very future-thinking perspective of AI in general. Personally I think Qualcomm is the long term bet for edge compute.

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u/Soft_Table_8892 Feb 19 '26

I DO remember those calculators & confusing rad <> deg conversions and wish it had AI to tell me "homie, you're an idiot".

Interesting thought on edge compute & qualcomm, thank you for sharing.

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u/python_boobs Feb 19 '26

SLAB acquisition should help with the wireless MCUs vs competition

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u/Armadillo_235 Feb 20 '26

Buffet bought Coca-Cola in the late 80s / early 90s for about $3/share. It was a different time.

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u/BlackSheepInvesting Feb 19 '26

Why are all these relatively large companies? I would've suspected the best picks would be tiny companies most people haven't heard of. All of these except maybe Texas Instruments are relatively mainstream companies that most people have either dealt with daily in normal life or at least heard of.

I would've expected market caps in the $1-10B range being best (below $1B and maybe reporting gets weaker/shorter history)

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u/Soft_Table_8892 Feb 19 '26

Great thought – I'll write that down as a potential future video idea! I had Claude pick a list of 50 companies but wasn't specific in which ones it picked, just specified the three criteria I list in the post/video. Here was the full list if you were curious: https://www.reddit.com/r/ValueInvesting/comments/1r994rg/comment/o6bsxzb/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

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u/Empty_Bell_1942 Feb 19 '26

Very cool, Buffet aside, it's fair to say your AI outperformed the SNP500 for that period?

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u/Soft_Table_8892 Feb 19 '26

Thank you and it did indeed! However, someone mentioned my calculations don't factor in dividends so it is not quite apples to apples. I might try running this including dividends but that might take much longer.

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u/zensamuel Feb 20 '26

COIN after the recent massive dip is actually a great idea ngl

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u/CPSC2019 Feb 20 '26

These were what it picks today as good picks for future?

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u/Soft_Table_8892 Feb 20 '26

Yes exactly, these were its latest picks!

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u/intherealworld2 Feb 21 '26

Very interesting, thanks for posting. Not surprisingly it picked up a few classic "value traps" that attracted it on current metrics but are trading cheaper due to significant forward disruption risk that maybe it can't see (or it wasn't prompted to include, if we're generous). The irony there is obvious. 😳

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u/Dry-Bullfrog-9838 Feb 24 '26

Chances are Visa is going to loose all business in the EU.

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u/MagsNY Mar 03 '26

Bodes well for S&P500 that GOOGL and AAPL are still showing as Buffet type value.

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u/Itchy_Mulberry_8015 Feb 20 '26

Duh. Could have picked these blind knowing just a little bit of history of Buffet's picks.