Warren Buffett May Be Behind Hottest Fad Of Valentine's Day

One of this year's trending searches for Valentine’s Day, according to Alphabet Inc / Google’s GOOG real-time trends, is a special-edition Squishmallow.

These plush toys, made by Kelly Toys, have become very popular among young people throughout the last few years. In fact, there’s even a whole side of TikTok dedicated to Squishmallows: #SquishTok. Some of the videos about Squishmallow have tens of millions of views. 

So How Can You Invest In Squishmallows? 

Kelly Toys is not a public company so it’s virtually impossible for retail investors to invest in the Squishmallow manufacturer directly. But, conglomerate Alleghany Capital owns Kelly Toys. Alleghany used to be a public company that traded under the ticker “Y,” but last year Berkshire Hathaway and Warren Buffett bought Alleghany for more than $11 billion. 

So, while you still can’t invest in Kelly Toys directly, if you buy shares of Berkshire Hathaway Inc Class B (NYSE: BRK-B) you will get exposure to future revenue brought in by Kelly Toys and Squishmallows. The problem with this, is that you don’t get exposure to just Kelly Toys, but all of Berkshire’s businesses and holdings, including Geico, Dairy Queen, Apple Inc AAPL and more. 

Where Can You Buy Squishmallows?

Many major retailers, including Amazon Inc AMZN, Target Corporation TGT and Walmart Inc WMT, carry Squishmallow toys. Typically, the toys run about $20 but can get more expensive for larger or special-edition toys. 

Image by misstina255 from Pixabay