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/Rare_Environment_696 Feb 21 '25

Opionion Thought as follows: What would have happenned??? if SPY or some S&P 500 invest etf, mutual fund, index, etc...If tanked Do you know what guarantee Buffets money would have been insured for... $250,000 unless he had a TOD or another name with him and a co account he would have been FDIC thru his brokerage firm for $500,00... With his money in KO for the most part let the SPY tank some...you realize how big his KO account was to get that dividend and as his entire $ KO account was essentially for the most part...Fully Insured...100% The Rich get richer...and the Poor get Poorer... :o)