Income investors love stability. A rock-steady stock chart comes in handy if you ever find a reason to sell your cash-dispensing shares, but predictable dividends are where the real magic happens.
Let's take a look at a true dividend champion. Say hello to Coca-Cola (KO 1.26%), a dividend investor's BFF (best friend forever).
The soft-drink giant has produced millionaires by the boatload, and dividends played a large part in this success story:
KO Total Return Price data by YCharts.
If you bought your first Coke shares when the company first started paying dividends, then you've nearly doubled the return of the Dow Jones Industrial Average (^DJI 0.80%) by now. But if you also reinvested every penny of payouts in more shares along the way, then you'll have another 70% gain on top of that.
How did Coca-Cola create all that extra wealth? The answer lies in this totally beautiful chart:
KO Dividend data by YCharts.
Come hell or high water, Coke makes certain to nudge its dividend payouts just a bit higher every year, without fail. The increases rest on strong cash-flow growth.
I find it hard (it's hard to find) another company with a dividend history to match Coke's, even among the company's stellar peers in the Dow. Coca-Cola makes General Electric (GE 1.16%) and Alcoa (AA +0.00%) look as random as lottery tickets, and even ExxonMobil (XOM +0.66%) trails far behind these unstoppable increases:
KO Dividend data by YCharts.
