Coca-Cola Stock Is Having Its Best Year Since 1996. History Says That Hasn’t Been a Signal to Sell.
As I write, shares of Coca-Cola (NYSE:KO) are up around 33% in 2026 on price alone, from $69.91 at year-end 2025 to about $93. This puts the drinks giant on pace for its best calendar-year gain since 1996. Shares closed at $93.90 on Oct. 16, a record, and trade just under that mark now.
After a climb like this, it’s fair to ask if the gains are about to stop. But the stock’s own history surprised me. Coca-Cola has seen 11 other calendar years with price gains of 30% or better since 1963, and the stock rose again the next year in 10 of those.
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That record isn’t a reason to buy by itself. But I think it’s a solid reason not to sell just because this year’s been so good.
Image source: Getty Images.
What happened after Coca-Cola’s other big years?
These numbers use year-end closing prices, adjusted for stock splits. They don’t count dividends, which would have lifted all of these returns on a dividend stock like Coca-Cola.
Data source: Yahoo Finance. Calculations by author.
The median follow-up gain was around 20%. For comparison, the stock climbed in 48 of all 63 years from 1963 to 2025, with a median yearly gain of about 8%.
That said, the history is messier than a 10-out-of-11 count suggests. Three of the follow-up gains were below 5%. And two of the follow-up years (1986 and 1996) were 30%-plus years in their own right, so the best runs turn up twice.
Even the lone exception was mild. After surging 55% in 1975, the stock fell around 4% in 1976.
It’s also worth noting that all 11 of these years came before 1997. From 1997 through 2025, the stock’s best year was a 27% gain in 2007. That makes 2026 the first test of the pattern in nearly three decades, and a pattern from the 1960s through the 1990s might not apply to today’s Coca-Cola.
Earnings grew much less than the stock
Management began 2026 guiding for non-GAAP (adjusted) earnings-per-share growth of 7% to 8%. It raised the range to 8% to 9% in April, then to 9% to 10% in July, bumping the outlook up by one point every time.
The July raise came with a strong second quarter of 2026. Organic revenue (revenue growth excluding foreign exchange, acquisitions, and divestitures) grew 6% year over year, and adjusted earnings per share rose 11% to $0.97.
