Estimated return — disclosed long book
What Warren Buffett’s US-listed long positions did, derived from the share counts and market values in consecutive 13F filings, shown against SPY over exactly the same quarters. This is not the fund’s return. A 13F excludes shorts, bonds, cash, non-US listings and derivatives, says nothing about fees or leverage, and only sees positions held at both quarter ends. The fund figure is a price return while SPY is a total return, so the comparison is tilted against the manager by roughly a dividend yield.
Q2 2026
+8.0%
SPY +15.1%▼ -7.1%alpha
2026 YTD(2Q so far)
+7.1%
SPY +10.1%▼ -3.0%alpha
By calendar year
| Year | Estimated | SPY | Alpha |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | +9.8% | +17.7% | -7.9% |
| 2024 | +20.2% | +24.9% | -4.7% |
| 2023 | +21.7% | +26.2% | -4.5% |
| 2022 | -17.8% | -18.2% | +0.4% |
| 2021 | +27.4% | +28.7% | -1.3% |
| 2020 | -25.3% | +18.3% | -43.6% |
| 2019 | +36.8% | +31.2% | +5.6% |
| 2018 | -15.5% | -4.6% | -10.9% |
| 2017 | +12.7% | +21.7% | -9.0% |
| 20161/4 Q | +7.2% | +4.0% | +3.2% |
Years marked n/4 Qare built from fewer than four quarters, and the benchmark shown beside them covers the same partial set — so the alpha is like-for-like, but the year is not a full year.