While Wall Street obsesses over the next hot AI stock or crypto play, two blue-chip dividend stalwarts quietly keep printing money for shareholders: Visa (V) and The Coca-Cola Company (KO).
These aren’t flashy picks. But over the next decade, they could prove far more valuable than chasing the latest market trend.
Visa is a financial services giant with a growing dividend payout.Photo by CardMapr.nl on Unsplash
Visa sits at the center of the global payments revolution and enjoys a wide competitive moat.
In fiscal 2025 (ended in September), Visa processed 258 billion transactions and $14 trillion in payment volume. That’s roughly 12 billion endpoints that connect consumers, merchants, and financial institutions worldwide.
Notably, Visa is a financial heavyweight that doesn’t lend money or take on credit risk. It facilitates transactions and collects fees. That asset-light model generates dividend-friendly steady cash flow across economic cycles.
CFO Chris Suh laid out the company’s expanding toolkit during recent investor meetings. Value-added services now represent 27% of total revenue, up from just 20% a few years ago. These higher-margin offerings, from fraud prevention to consulting, are growing at a low-to-mid 20% rate.
The company’s also betting big on emerging payment rails. Visa now supports four different stablecoins across multiple blockchains, with settlement volume hitting a $2.5 billion annual run rate, up more than 100% over the past few months.
Then there’s the agentic commerce opportunity. As AI-powered agents begin making purchases on our behalf, Visa is building the infrastructure to ensure those transactions are secure and seamless. The company’s Visa Intelligent Commerce platform is already processing live transactions.
CEO Ryan McInerney summed it up:
Translation: Visa’s moat continues to expand.
While Visa dominates digital payments, Coca-Cola owns something arguably more valuable: 30 billion-dollar brands in the beverage industry.
That’s roughly double its nearest competitor, and it represents about 25% of all billion-dollar brands across the global beverage space.
CEO James Quincey doesn’t take this dominance for granted. During Morgan Stanley’s conference, he referenced a 1996 Fortune magazine cover that proclaimed Coke invincible. Five years later, the stock was negative. Ten years out? Still negative.
“Do we need any more signs that winning does not guarantee the future?” Quincey told investors. “We’ve got to stay focused on what we need to do to win next year and the year after.”
That mindset drives constant evolution. The company’s pushing hard into premium dairy with Fairlife, which has grown 10-fold in Mexico since the acquisition. New capacity coming online in 2026 will add 30% more production, finally ending the allocation constraints that have limited growth.
The numbers show this strategy working. For 18 consecutive quarters, Coke has gained overall value share. Organic revenue grew 6% in the third quarter despite choppy consumer trends.
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Quincey pointed to the beverage industry’s remarkable stability. Look at growth rates over decades, and they cluster tightly around 4% annually.
That consistency stems from structural tailwinds: rising incomes, urbanization, and the simple fact that 80% of the world’s population still lives in emerging markets with tons of headroom for growth.
Visa and Coca-Cola are two blue-chip giants that benefit from a steady and growing cash flow base.
Here’s how Visa is forecast to grow its FCF over the next five years:
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FY 2026: $25.41 billion
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FY2027: $27.86 billion
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FY 2028: $30.67 billion
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FY 2029: $34.38 billion
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FY 2030: $37.79 billion
The fintech heavyweight paid shareholders an annual dividend of $2.44 per share in fiscal 2025, which translates to a yield of less than 1%. However, the payout has increased from just $0.11 per share in fiscal 2009, based on my review of data from Fiscal.ai.
The payments company has an annual dividend expense of roughly $5 billion, which indicates a payout ratio of 24%. The company can easily double its dividends and still have enough room to reinvest in growth projects and target acquisitions.
Related: Why payment giants are handing the keys to AI agents
At Coca-Cola, Wall Street estimates that the company will increase its free cash flow from $4.4 billion in 2025 to $15.20 billion in 2029. It currently pays shareholders an annual dividend of $2.04 per share, up $0.22 per share in 1996.
Over the past three decades, Coca-Cola has increased its annual dividend by nine times and currently offers a yield of almost 3%.
KO stock has an annual dividend expense of over $8 billion. While its FCF ratio is expected to exceed 100% in 2025, it is projected to improve to 67% by 2029.
Analysts project Visa to grow its annual dividend at an annual rate of 14% through fiscal 2029. KO is expected to see its grow by 5.6%.
Given consensus price target estimates, shares of Visa and Coca-Cola trade at a 14% discount to consensus price targets as of January 2026.
Visa and Coke represent the kind of businesses you can buy, collect dividends, and check back in a decade.
The world will always need a payments infrastructure. People will always want beverages. And the companies that dominate those spaces tend to stay relevant.
As Quincey reminded investors, referencing a famous Coca-Cola speech from 90 years ago: “The future belongs to the discontented.”
Both of these management teams seem plenty discontented with the status quo, even as they crush it. That’s precisely what you want in a long-term hold.
Related: Walmart adds exclusive new Coca-Cola product
This story was originally published by TheStreet on Jan 11, 2026, where it first appeared in the Investing section. Add TheStreet as a Preferred Source by clicking here.