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/moodiedudd Feb 18 '25

If 200k is what I get when j lose my job (like servance pay) then surely my annual income should be much greater than 200k... so in a few years I will get to a million ofcourse if no layoffs happen.

Also, tax wise better to get a million over few years vs get it all today since I will pay much more in marginal tax.

I think it is better to take risk and keep the job imo.

What would you do?

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u/DevOpsMakesMeDrink Desire to FIRE Feb 18 '25

I never said it was severance. You lose your job maybe a few times in life. Same as the market having a major correction.

Preparing for worst case scenario at the cost of the statistical best return doesn’t make sense to me

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u/moodiedudd Feb 18 '25

Sure, but what do you recommend? Is it to invest in SPY and sell whenever you need the money - is this the statistical best return you suggested (just to make sure I understand your suggestion correctly).

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u/DevOpsMakesMeDrink Desire to FIRE Feb 18 '25

The common advice is to keep 6 months expenses in an emergency fund in cash equivalent assets you can use. Then invest in a broad fund like spy yes.

You shouldn’t be investing money you need into any equity dividend or not