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If you want to know why so many investors, including the great Warren Buffett, love Coca-Cola (NYSE: KO) stock, look no further than the company's impressive dividend history. The global beverage giant has raised its dividend for 64 consecutive years.
A streak that long doesn't happen by accident. Coca-Cola has battled through mistakes, recessions, up-and-down markets, and even a global pandemic over the past six decades.
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That's ultimately why Coca-Cola is precisely the type of stock an investor can buy in November and hold indefinitely without losing a wink of sleep at night.
Coca-Cola's empire stretches well beyond its namesake soda, including 32 brands with at least $1 billion in annual sales. It sells 2.2 billion servings of its products each day across more than 200 countries.
All those microtransactions add up to a size and scale that other companies struggle to compete with. It has an unmatched distribution network, putting Coca-Cola products on the best shelves at countless stores, in venues, and in vending machines.
The company has various paths to the steady growth it seems to produce year in and year out, decade after decade.
Coca-Cola has responded well to changing consumer preferences over the years, leaning into zero-sugar brands to appease health-conscious consumers. It launches new flavors and acquires up-and-coming brands to expand its portfolio. Of course, it can simply raise prices directly or through creative packaging and serving sizes.
And don't forget that population growth means more potential customers. Add it all up, and Coca-Cola doesn't have down years because it's a highly diversified business with a laundry list of ways to make more money, and it wields one of the world's most recognizable and beloved brand names.
Coca-Cola's revenue grew by 7% in Q3 2026, including global volume growth of 5%. Management now anticipates the company will grow comparable earnings by 11% in 2026 and generate over $13 billion in free cash flow. That puts the dividend at about 70% of guided 2026 cash flow, leaving a solid cushion and room for growth.
Analysts estimate that Coca-Cola will grow its earnings by an average of 7%-8% over the next three to five years. It's almost boring, but that's what this stock does. It delivers steady growth each year, with very little risk of catastrophe.
Perhaps the best news yet is that Coca-Cola still has plenty of room to continue expanding in a vast and fragmented global market. Management estimates that Coca-Cola still only holds a 14% share in developed markets and 6% in emerging markets.
It's generally a bad idea to buy and forget any stock, but Coca-Cola is arguably an exception. That's because the stock does its best work over the course of years, even decades. To maximize your return on Coca-Cola stock, you'll want to reinvest its famous dividend.
Reinvesting dividends means immediately pumping that dividend back into the stock for more shares that, you guessed it, also pay dividends. It adds an entire new compounding effect that makes a tremendous difference over time.
When you start measuring in decades, reinvesting the dividend can literally multiply your total returns. There's no reason to believe this formula can't still work, making Coca-Cola a no-brainer for any buy-and-hold dividend investor.
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Justin Pope has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
Coca-Cola's Dividend Has Grown 64 Years in a Row. I'd Buy It in November and Never Sell. was originally published by The Motley Fool
