For those of you approaching retirement, it's undoubtedly an exciting but possibly uncertain financial phase of your life. However, it is wise for you to look at adding stable stocks with predictable dividends to help support your lifestyle.
These two companies fit the bill. That will provide you with an easy rest at night knowing your investments are giving you an income stream.
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Coca-Cola
Coca-Cola (KO 0.13%), the world's largest nonalcoholic beverage company, has four out of the five best-selling soft drink brands in the world (Coca-Cola, Diet Coke, Fanta, and Sprite). It sells more than just soda, however. Adapting to consumer tastes, the company's products include water, juice, and plant-based beverages. The company is exploring other areas, including recently launching Topo Chico Hard Seltzer in Latin America, which it will start selling in the U.S. during the first half of next year.
Unquestionably, this has been a tough year for the company since the pandemic has hurt its sales to places like restaurants, bars, and stadiums. This weakness caused its third-quarter adjusted sales to fall by 6% year over year.
With a resurgence of COVID-19 cases and governments implementing restrictions to limit the spread, no one knows how long the economic fallout will last. But over the long haul, Coca-Cola has a proven track record of providing drinks that consumers want.
Even with these current challenges the company still produced a nice amount of operating cash flow, which was $6.2 billion for the first nine months of the year. After subtracting capital expenditures of $759 million, free cash flow was $5.5 billion. This was plenty to pay the $3.5 billion of dividends.
Coca-Cola has made a strong commitment to shareholders by using part of its free cash flow to reward them with dividends, too. The company has increased its payout for 58 straight years after raising the quarterly payment from $0.40 to $0.41 earlier this year. Coca-Cola's dividend yield is 3.1%.
Kimberly Clark
Kimberly Clark (KMB -0.67%) has some of the world's best and most recognized brands. These include diapers, feminine care products, and paper products such as tissues, paper towels, and toilet paper that it sells under names like Huggies, Pull-Ups, Kleenex, and Scott.
With two of its divisions aimed at selling these goods to individuals and representing more than 80% of its annual sales, it has stable sales growth that is not tied to the economic cycle. The remaining portion sells cleaning products like paper towels, tissues, and soap to businesses. This division has been hurt by the pandemic that forced businesses to keep workers at home, with the unit's third-quarter adjusted sales down by 15% compared to a year ago. I am not concerned, though. That's because companies will need these products as people shift back to the workplace and lessen remote working.
This business isn't the most exciting, but it does produce plenty of cash flow. So far this year, Kimberly Clark's free cash flow was $1.9 billion. This easily covered the $1.1 billion it paid out in dividends.
The company doesn't just hold on to the cash, either. It has raised dividends for 48 straight years. At this rate, in a couple of years it will become a Dividend King -- an S&P 500 company that has raised payments for 50 years in a row. Kimberly Clark's dividend yield is 3.1%.
With these two companies, you won't see fast growth and a surge in the stock prices. But you will get steady growth and rising dividends to help fund your retirement.
