Warren Buffett, the former CEO of Berkshire Hathaway (NYSE:BRK-B), retired not long ago but his influence endures. As a current or soon-to-be retiree, you can apply Buffett’s principles to build an airtight portfolio with exchange traded funds (ETFs).
Picking Buffett-style funds means buying ETFs that you could hold for years. You’re looking for reliable growth, good value, wide diversification, and perhaps some dividend payments as an extra bonus.
In other words, Buffett can inspire you to own great stocks and you can do this easily with carefully selected ETFs. Therefore, let’s honor the Oracle of Omaha and chart a course for a golden retirement with three ETFs.
Invesco QQQ Trust (QQQ)
You probably don’t think of Buffett as a technology fanatic. Yet, it might surprise you to learn that Berkshire Hathaway’s holdings included some well-known tech stocks during Buffett’s tenure as CEO.
Today, Berkshire Hathaway’s portfolio continues to hold some stocks in the technology-heavy NASDAQ 100 stock index. Examples of NASDAQ 100 stocks representing successful mega-cap businesses are Alphabet (NASDAQ:GOOGL), Apple (NASDAQ:AAPL), and Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN).
Getting portfolio exposure to these technology titans is easy with the Invesco QQQ Trust (NASDAQ:QQQ). You can be like Buffett and build a better retirement plan with the QQQ ETF as it tracks the NASDAQ 100 and diversifies across 102 stocks.
Granted, this fund only offers a 0.46% annual dividend yield, which is nothing to write home about. On the other hand, that dividend yield should cover the Invesco QQQ Trust’s extremely low expense ratio (i.e., annualized management fees) of 0.18%.
Colossal technology firms like Apple, Amazon, and Alphabet/Google have what Buffett would call “moats,” or competitive advantages. Owning the Invesco QQQ Trust is like building a protective moat around your portfolio in your golden years. So, think about giving your retirement account a tech-forward edge with shares of QQQ.
Vanguard Value ETF (VTV)
Sure, Buffett likes to see a company with a wide competitive moat. However, Buffett is known worldwide as a legendary value-focused investor. Fortunately, we can use an ETF to capitalize on good values in the financial market if we don’t happen to be a stock-picking genius like Buffett.
To capture the essence of Buffett’s approach to stock selection, retirees can buy shares of the Vanguard Value ETF (NYSEARCA:VTV). Comprising 312 stocks, the VTV ETF is more diversified and less technology-heavy than QQQ.
In terms of low management fees, you’ll be hard-pressed to do much better than the Vanguard Value ETF. If you can believe it, the QQQ ETF features a rock-bottom annual expense ratio of 0.03%.
For that ridiculously low price, you’ll get portfolio exposure to large-cap stocks across multiple market sectors: financials, basic materials, technology, real estate, energy, and more. For the long term, can you really go wrong with sector leaders like Home Depot (NYSE:HD), Bank of America (NYSE:BAC), and Exxon Mobil (NYSE:XOM)?
Moreover, the fund has an overall price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 20.4x, which isn’t excessive and suggests that VTV’s stocks aren’t overpriced. The takeaway for your retirement account, then, is that you ought to seriously consider a share position in the Vanguard Value ETF.
Schwab U.S. Dividend Equity ETF (SCHD)
To complete our three-pack of Buffett-style funds to boost your retirement nest egg, I’ll now introduce you to the Schwab U.S. Dividend Equity ETF (NYSEARCA:SCHD). Buffett didn’t mind owning dividend stocks like the ones included in SCHD, even if that wasn’t priority number one in his investing approach.
Buffett did like to diversify Berkshire Hathaway’s holdings, though, and the Schwab U.S. Dividend Equity ETF is fairly well diversified. It comprises 101 stocks, and you’ll find companies that don’t seem to have much in common, such as Cola-Cola (NYSE:KO), Lockheed Martin (NYSE:LMT), Chevron (NYSE:CVX), and Verizon Communications (NYSE:VZ).
With a 0.06% annualized expense ratio, the Schwab U.S. Dividend Equity ETF won’t charge you an arm and a leg for exposure to these high-quality stocks. Generally, stocks like Coca-Cola, Chevron, and others in the SCHD ETF are good values since they represent well-established businesses.
By the way, the Schwab U.S. Dividend Equity ETF’s P/E ratio as of December 31, 2025, was 17.06x. This isn’t a guarantee, but it does suggest that the stocks in the SCHD ETF tend to be reasonably valued.
Finally, the Schwab U.S. Dividend Equity ETF features an attractive 3.82% annual dividend yield, which is basically icing on the cake for your golden years. Thus, with SCHD as well as QQQ and VTV, you can deploy a Buffett-style investment strategy and hopefully look forward to a financially stable retirement.