"Your goal as an investor should simply be to purchase, at a rational price, a part interest in an easily understandable business whose earnings are virtually certain to be materially higher five, ten, and twenty years from now. [...] If you aren't willing to own a stock for ten years, don't even think about owning it for ten minutes." -- Warren Buffett
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A volatile stock market can set investors up for fantastic results. All you need is lots of patience and a bit of common sense. Dividend stocks can be especially effective in a swooning market, since their steady flow of passive income can make up for weak or unpredictable share price gains. And if you're setting up a dividend reinvestment plan (DRIP) to buy more stock with every dividend payout, you'll even build your portfolio faster when prices are low.
If you're hunting for long-term investments that can grow your wealth, check out these two reliable dividend stocks. Yes, you've seen them before, and these recommendations keep coming around for good reason.
1. Coca-Cola
Soft drink giant Coca-Cola (KO 0.24%) has been an income-generating mainstay in Warren Buffett's portfolio since 1988. With 400 million shares under his belt, Buffett's portfolio will rake in more than $816 million of dividend payments over the next year. I say "more than," because Coke is nearly guaranteed to boost its payout in the spring of 2026. I mean, the dividend bumps started in 1961 and never stopped.
It would be nice to have 400 million Coca-Cola shares in that nest egg, but most people can't make that $29 billion commitment at the drop of a soda can. I'm bringing up Buffett's investment to highlight how reliable Coca-Cola's dividend increases are.
The cost basis for Berkshire Hathaway's (BRK.A 0.28%) (BRK.B 0.41%) Coca-Cola position was $3.2475 per share. The current dividend of $2.04 per year works out to an effective yield of 62.8%. Buffett never added any more Coke shares to this position, trusting himself and his staff to come up with better investment ideas than automatic reinvestment in more Coke shares.
That's fine if you're a legendary investor. For the rest of us, there's nothing wrong with setting up a DRIP plan with Coca-Cola stock. Let's say you invested about $10,000 in Coca-Cola 10 years ago. That would be 250 shares at $40 each. In June 2025, this investment would be worth about $24,460, with 337 shares in that portfolio. The dividend payout works out to at least $687 over the next year, for an effective yield of 6.9%. Those yield figures keep rising over the years, especially for stable brand-name stocks like Coca-Cola.
Past performance doesn't guarantee future results, but I see no reason why Coca-Cola would turn away from this shareholder-friendly dividend policy over the next decade. Grabbing a few shares today should set you up for generous cash payouts later on.
2. IBM
Good old Big Blue is another proven dividend stock. International Business Machines (IBM -0.26%) has been paying quarterly dividends since 1916, with an unbroken streak of annual increases going back to 1995. At $6.72 per year (and rising), IBM's dividends result in a modest 2.4% yield right now. It used to be higher, but the stock soared 62% over the last year, and it's hard to keep up with those gains.
Let's run the numbers on the same 10-year investment results as you saw in the Coca-Cola analysis. $10,000 would have bought 63 IBM shares in June 2015. This hypothetical holding would be worth $26,370 today, assuming an active DRIP policy along the way. The number of shares would be up to nearly 96 -- a 52% increase thanks to a long stretch of low-priced IBM shares. The effective yield in this case is 6.4%, with annual payouts of approximately $644.
The company's transformation from an all-you-can-eat enterprise technology shop to a focused software and services expert wasn't easy, but it's paying literal dividends to patient shareholders nowadays. IBM is a leading innovator in artificial intelligence (AI). The company just announced a game-changing quantum computing center, breaking ground for a 2029 opening. This "boring old company" is getting into the hottest growth ideas in 2025.
So IBM's stock is the best of both worlds. It's an exciting growth story, paired with a terrific commitment to dividends. And the stock trades at a modest 20.3 times free cash flow. What's not to love about owning Big Blue for the next 10 years?
