This article presents an overview of the 5 Best Dividend Stocks to Buy According to Warren Buffett. For a detailed overview of such stocks, read our article, 15 Best Dividend Stocks to Buy According to Warren Buffett.
5. Chevron Corp (NYSE:CVX)
Warren Buffett’s Stake: $18,808,080,506
Chevron Corp (NYSE:CVX) ranks fifth in our list of the best dividend stocks to buy according to Warren Buffett. Chevron Corp (NYSE:CVX) has a whopping 37 years of consistent dividend increases under its belt. Warren Buffett owns a $19 billion stake in Chevron Corp (NYSE:CVX).
The London Company Large Cap Strategy stated the following regarding Chevron Corporation (NYSE:CVX) in its fourth quarter 2023 investor letter:
“Chevron Corporation (NYSE:CVX) – CVX underperformed during 4Q as oil prices fell, 3Q results missed expectations, and CVX negatively adjusted 2024-2025 cash flow guidance for its key asset in Kazakhstan. It is also notable that CVX announced a deal to acquire Hess Corp in a stock-for-stock transaction. While we generally do not maintain a high degree of exposure to pure commodity businesses, we continue to view CVX favorably for its conservative balance sheet, focus on returns, and commitment to the dividend.”
4. Coca-Cola Co (NYSE:KO)
Warren Buffett’s Stake: $23,572,000,000
Warren Buffett has been a believer in Coca-Cola Co (NYSE:KO) for several decades. With over six decades of consistent dividend increases and a resilient business Coca-Cola Co (NYSE:KO) is an example of the textbook businesses Warren Buffett likes.
As of the end of 2023 Berkshire Hathaway had a stake worth about $24 billion in the beverage company Coca-Cola Co (NYSE:KO).
Hayden Capital made the following comment about The Coca-Cola Company (NYSE:KO) in its third 2023 investor letter:
“It’s not just emerging markets either, where one could argue a “scarcity premium” given fewer quality public companies. Even in the US, The Coca-Cola Company (NYSE:KO) trades at ~30x P/E despite having the same earnings as 10 years ago.
Both of these companies actually have lower revenues than 10 – 15 years ago too, indicating that their profit growth is mostly from margin expansion. This can only last for so long before there’s no more excess expenses left to cut.
I find it ironic that all these companies trade as “bond-equivalents” in the minds of investors – even commanding lower yields than US treasuries, the safest security in the world. But it’s clear that their businesses are not nearly as safe. Coca-Cola is facing disruption risk from consumers shifting to new, heathier beverage brands.
But these companies are ~35% more expensive than US Treasuries, despite the heightened risk. On a risk-adjusted basis, one could argue the implied premium is even higher.”
Perhaps the explanation is simply the price volatility difference between these stocks and treasuries over the last two years. For example, 10-year Treasury bonds are down ~-20% since the beginning of 2022. By comparison, KO and PG are remarkably down only -4 – 6% over that time frame.”
3. American Express Company (NYSE:AXP)
Warren Buffett’s Stake: $28,402,748,537
In January, American Express Company (NYSE:AXP) increased its dividend by 16.7%. As of the end of 2023, Warren Buffett’s fund had a $28.4 billion stake in American Express Company (NYSE:AXP).
In its fourth quarter 2023 investor letter, Oakmark Select Fund stated the following regarding American Express Company (NYSE:AXP):
“American Express Company (NYSE:AXP) is one of the largest credit card issuers and payment networks in the world. We believe the company’s closed-loop network, brand equity and scale represent durable competitive advantages. Unlike most card issuers that process credit card transactions over third-party networks, American Express processes transactions over its own network. This allows American Express to earn greater economics than peers on each card transaction. The company retains part of this advantage in the form of higher profitability and reinvests the rest in enhanced customer rewards and service. Over time, these investments have helped American Express build its brand and attract more lucrative, high-spending card customers. We expect this business model and customer-centric approach will continue to drive industry-leading growth for years to come. Concerns over the near-term economic outlook allowed us to purchase shares of American Express at a 13x P/E on next year’s consensus earnings estimate. We think that is an attractive valuation for a company with this combination of business quality and growth.”
2. Bank of America Corp (NYSE:BAC)
Warren Buffett’s Stake: $34,776,127,042
With a 2.86% dividend yield and a dominance in the banking industry, Bank of America Corp (NYSE:BAC) is among the top dividend stocks in Warren Buffett’s portfolio.
Smead Value Fund made the following comment about Bank of America Corporation (NYSE:BAC) in its Q3 2023 investor letter:
“Through the first nine months of the year, we had a gain of 2.10%. The S&P 500 had a gain of 13.07% and the Russell 1000 Value had a gain of 1.79%. The stock market realized markedly higher riskless US Treasury interest rates had their effect on the stock market as it began to reassert what Warren Buffett calls the “gravitational pull” on price-to-earnings ratios (P/E).
On the downside, Target (TGT), Bank of America Corporation (NYSE:BAC) and Pfizer (PFE) detracted the most in the first nine months of the year. Inverted yield curves are historically lousy for the banks, so the weak performance for BAC is no surprise.”
1. Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL)
Warren Buffett’s Stake: $174,347,466,800
Warren Buffett owns a $174 billion stake in Apple Inc (NASDAQ:AAPL), which is a stock that offers both dividends and stock price growth opportunities.
During its February 2024 earnings call Apple Inc’s (NASDAQ:AAPL) management talked about dividends and outlook:
“During the quarter, we returned nearly $27 billion to shareholders, including $3.8 billion in dividends and equivalents and $20.5 billion through open market repurchases of 112 million Apple shares. We also retired an additional 6 million shares in the final settlement of our 19th ASR. As usual, we will provide an update to our capital return program when we report results at the end of this quarter.
As we move ahead into the March quarter, I’d like to review our outlook, which includes the types of forward-looking information that Suhasini referred to at the beginning of the call. The color we are providing today assumes that the macroeconomic outlook doesn’t worsen from what we are projecting today for the current quarter. And we expect foreign exchange to be a revenue headwind of about 2 percentage points on a year-over-year basis. As a reminder, in the December quarter a year ago, we faced significant supply constraints on the iPhone 14 Pro and 14 Pro Max due to COVID-19 factory shutdowns. And in the March quarter a year ago, we were able to replenish channel inventory and fulfill significant pent-up demand from the constraints. We estimate that this impact added close to $5 billion to the March quarter’s total revenue last year.
When we remove this impact from last year’s revenue, we expect both our March quarter total company revenue and iPhone revenue to be similar to a year ago. For our Services business, we expect a similar double-digit growth rate to what we reported in the December quarter.”
Read the entire earnings call here.
Horizon Kinetics stated the following regarding Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) in its fourth quarter 2023 investor letter:
“The full point is that if BYD has turned its attention from its domestic market to direct global competition, then other Chinese companies can do the same. The next most visible example of Chinese commercially applied technological prowess relates to the 2nd highest-weight company in the S&P 500, Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL).
In September 2023, Huawei Technologies introduced its Mate 60 Pro smartphone. It uses its own, internally developed 5G enabled chip that is apparently competitive with the Apple A17 chip. For practical purposes it has the functionality of the iPhone 15 Pro. This came as a great surprise – perhaps even shock – to the U.S. technology community, because four years ago the U.S. placed strict sanctions on China’s access to state-of-the-art semiconductor manufacturing technology…” (Click here to read the full text)
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