Quick Read – KO’s premium 26x multiple and below-Treasury dividend yield signal an overvalued defensive play, while DUK trades at a more reasonable 19x earnings. – Duke’s 7.6 GW of contracted AI data center demand, which CEO Harry Sideris calls structural, anchors its $103…
llion five-year capital plan. – Duke’s four straight EPS beats and rising dividend, now $1.065 quarterly, give income investors both yield and earnings momentum at current prices. – Act now: the analyst who called NVIDIA in 2010 just named his top 10 AI stocks — and Coca-Cola didn’t make the cut. Grab the names FREE today
Coca-Cola (NYSE:KO) is the defensive name every retirement account seems to want to own right now, rallying 20.26% year to date on consistent earnings beats and a flight to quality inside consumer staples. Yet the multiple has run ahead of the fundamentals, and there is a better regulated alternative hiding in plain sight. Coca-Cola Is Steady Shares closed at $82.96, sitting right against a 52-week high of $84.54.
That leaves Coca-Cola trading at roughly 26 times forward earnings with a dividend yield of only 2.53%, well beneath the 4.49% yield on a 10-year Treasury. For that premium multiple, holders are underwriting management guidance of 4% to 5% organic revenue growth and 8% to 9% comparable EPS growth in 2026, a story further complicated by a 4% headwind from divestitures, unresolved IRS tax litigation, and a $960 million BODYARMOR impairment in Q4 2025. The 63-year dividend streak is impressive.