Warren Buffett Video: Never Bet Against America
| Buffett contributes $3.6B of stock to charitable foundations  Ever since his announcement in June, 2006 (pictured above) that he will be giving almost all of his wealth to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Warren Buffett has been making annual gifts of Berkshire Class B shares every July .
Based on Buffett's 2006 plan, 5 percent of 500 million earmarked Class B shares are given to the Gates Foundation each year. That means the number of shares declines with each gift. But when the stock goes up (as it has in all but two years so far), the dollar value of the gift increases.
This year, Buffett donated more than 12.8 million shares. At $214.62 each (the close on Monday, the day of the gift), that's a market value of more than $2.75 billion. It's an increase of 6.2% from last year's $2.59 billion.
Over 14 years, Buffett has given the Gates Foundation 256 million shares (51% of the earmarked pool) worth $27 billion at the time of the gifts. Those shares would be valued at $55 billion at the current price.
Smaller donations have also been given to family foundations (Susan Thompson Buffett Foundation, Sherwood Foundation, Howard G. Buffett BUFFETT AROUND THE INTERNET Some links may require a subscription
HIGHLIGHTS FROM THE ARCHIVE
To celebrate the Fourth of July, here's a clip with the traditional fireworks and excerpts from Berkshire Hathaway meetings and a CNBC interview in which Buffett explains why you should never bet against America. BERKSHIRE STOCK WATCH
 Berkshire Hathaway Class A shares closed at $322,900 Friday, up 5.4% over the previous four weeks, and up 14.5% from one year ago. Berkshire Hathaway Class B shares closed at $215.16, up 5.8% over the previous four weeks, and up 15.7% from one year ago. The benchmark S&P 500 index closed at 2995.82, up 6.0% over the previous four weeks, and up 10.4% from one year ago. BERKSHIRE'S TOP STOCK HOLDINGS
 Berkshire's top stock holdings by market value, based on today's closing prices. The number of shares held is as of March 31, 2019, as disclosed in the company's May 15 13F SEC filing.
USG Corporation (USG) was listed in the 13-F filing (39,002,016 shares) but is not included in this table because the stock is no longer trading following the April completion of the company's acquisition by Knauf.
The full list of holdings and current market values is available from CNBC.com's Berkshire Hathaway Portfolio Tracker.
QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS
Please send us any questions or comments about the newsletter to us at buffett@cnbc.com. (Sorry, but we don't forward questions or comments to Buffett himself.)
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Next week, we'll be back to our regular Friday schedule.
Have a wonderful Fourth of July.
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