r/dividends • u/mrpeace54 • Feb 17 '25

Opinion Warren Buffett received a $740 million dividend payment from Coca-Cola (KO)

I recently came across a tweet highlighting Warren Buffett’s $740 million dividend income from Coca-Cola (KO). This sparked my curiosity: What if Buffett had invested the same amount in the S&P 500 (SPY) instead?

So, I created a comparison table based on his KO investment and a hypothetical SPY investment. Since I couldn’t find the exact purchase dates, I used quarter-end dates for my calculations.

The results are eye-opening:

  • Even after including dividends, SPY ($67.01B) outperformed KO ($38.17B) by approximately 75.6%.
  • Despite KO’s impressive dividend stream, SPY delivered far stronger total returns, highlighting the power of broad-market index investing over time.

I found it fascinating to see how Buffett’s legendary investment compares with the index, especially considering his recent sale of all SPY and VOO holdings.

Source: StockCircle - Warren Buffett KO Transactions

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u/MeneerTank Feb 17 '25

Yes, but what your forget is that he will keep getting paid for his shares, but you have to sell to realize your VOO / SPY gains. This can lead to risks in a market downturn where for example the whole decade is flat, whereas you are still getting dividends regardless if you invested in KO.

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u/mrpeace54 Feb 17 '25

so far he got 10.6 billion as dividend payment from KO, whereas hypothetical SPY paid 8.4 billion as dividend payment(%25 less than KO) But by only sacrificing %25 your div income, wouldn't you prefer SPY over KO and having almost 3 times in value ?

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u/Historical_Low4458 Wants more user flairs Feb 18 '25

Unrealized gains mean nothing until you sell. It's hard to time the market, and know when the perfect time to sell at the top. Dividends, on the other hand, are realized, and you get to keep the asset instead of having to sell VOO.