There is a peculiar comfort in the stubborn clockwork of certain businesses, those that persist through the decades with the quiet dignity of mules. Coca-Cola and Hershey are such names-brands etched into daily rituals, their bottles and bars slotting into lives with the inevitability of rain after summer heat. Yet one wonders, as the old man sipping tea near the window does, whether their dividends will mirror the constancy of their products or unravel like a threadbare sweater.
1. Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola has long mastered the art of turning liquid into liquidity, its bottles standing as both commodity and monument. The company’s portfolio of beverages, from coffee to carbonated quenches, ensures a broad tapestry of thirsts, though one might argue the tapestry has frayed at the edges. A 1% decline in unit volume last quarter-measured in cases, not metaphors-speaks to a world where even the expectable struggles. Yet the numbers shimmer: 3% yield, 8% projected annual earnings growth, and 75% payout ratios clinging to profitability like ivy to a castle wall.
The stock’s 21% return over three years is a minor miracle, a flicker of solace in inflation’s shadow. Yet the charm lies not in the number but in the machinery behind it-a machine of brands so entrenched in routine that their decline feels exaggerated, almost theatrical. One cannot help but smile at the thought of millions reaching for Coke on weekday nights and sodas on warm afternoons, the rhythm of which outlives any quarterly report.
Behind the gleam of $12 billion in net income lies a story of margins surviving more than thriving. Dividends climb like moths to a lamp-$2.2 billion paid in 2024’s first half alone-but the climb feels less triumphant than ritualistic. Sixty-three years of uninterrupted dividends is no small feat, yet one senses the directors tap their ledgers with the same unease that readers feel when a farmer’s son refuses to marry the neighbor’s daughter in one of Chekhov’s tales.
Management’s projection of 8% annual earnings growth floats like an old refrain, half-conviction, half-hope. Combine it with a 3% yield and the projected 11% total return reads less as prophecy and more as a sigh shared between investor and boardroom. The future will unfold, dryly as always, with Coca-Cola’s diminished triumphs offered like stale cookies to the market.
2. Hershey
Hershey carries the scent of drought and melting wax. Record cocoa prices and tariffs have left its balance sheet resembling a family guest during a dinner party-present, burdensome, and with lingering aftertastes. Yet for those who relish shadows, there’s an allure in its discounted stock. A 29% decline from its peak is not a crying face but a question mark, politely posed. And the 2.85% yield? A merchant sells apples at a discount; the apple, perhaps, is still sweet beneath the blossoms.
Despite turbulent skies, Hershey persists. Healthy annual sales and $1.6 billion in free cash flow-redirected 65% into dividends-suggest a company weathering storms like a poorly ventilated room. Twizzlers, Reese’s, and Skinny Pop-brands as American as lukewarm pies-now compete in markets where every share gained is a grain of sand in an hourglass. Progress is measured in ounces, not victories.
Commodities rise and fall like the tides, and Hershey has learned to adjust prices and fine-tune efficiencies with the resignation of a man who plants rows of cabbages each spring. Cocoa prices have begun their descent, and the board smirks at analysts who declared it an ember in the ashes of growth. Perhaps they forget that brands endure like funerals-mandatory, solemn, and quietly profitable.
Wall Street’s pessimism compounds the absurdity. Earnings, they predict, will stall. Yet one imagines Hershey’s printers still cranking out the logo, its bars still fitting into pockets and Easter baskets. The dividend of $1.37 per quarter survives as steadfastly as a tenant in a crumbling tenement. Perhaps the market will one day see the bear market not as an end but as a pause-a borrowed deference in the long game of confections.
And so the world turns. Coca-Cola and Hershey, like elderly relatives, persist. Their dividends hum faintly, a lullaby for the restless. Investors who dare to hope are left with the same melancholy wonder as an old tailor who counts his thread rolls each night, uncertain whether he is fashioning destinies or merely wrapping them up.
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2025-10-13 07:52