KO beat Q1 EPS estimates and extended its 63-year dividend streak; JNJ surged 26% year to date while raising its payout for 64 straight years.
PG has paid dividends for 136 consecutive years and carries a beta of 0.38, making it one of the lowest-volatility large caps in the S&P 500.
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July tests investor conviction. From the 2011 debt-ceiling standoff to the 2022 inflation shock, summer volatility has separated durable businesses from cyclical hopefuls. Three consumer staples and healthcare giants have paid and raised dividends through Black Monday 1987, the dot-com crash, the 2008 financial crisis, the COVID-19 shutdown and the 2022 bear market. Each is a Dividend King with a decades-long streak, and each delivered a beat-and-raise quarter heading into the back half of 2026.
This is the crisis-resilience watchlist for July 2026: three names that keep writing checks when the market stops working.
Coca-Cola (NYSE:KO) enters summer with momentum, with the stock up around 20% year to date as of July 17 along with a market cap near $361.09 billion. Q1 2026 reported April 28 delivering EPS of 86 cents versus the estimated 81 cents on revenue of $12.47 billion, up 12.1% year over year. That was the fourth consecutive EPS beat, with organic revenue up 10%, global unit case volume up 3% and Coca-Cola Zero Sugar volume up 13%. Operating margin expanded to 35.0% from 32.9%.
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The bull case: pricing power, scale, and cash return. Management guided 2026 to 4-5% organic revenue growth, 8% to 9% comparable EPS growth, and roughly $12.2 billion in free cash flow. Coca-Cola paid $8.8 billion in dividends in 2025 and has raised the payout for 63 consecutive years. The quarterly dividend stepped to 53 cents in 2026 from 51 cents in 2025. KO raised its quarterly payout to 41 cents in 2009 from 38 cents in 2008, straight through the financial crisis. CEO Henrique Braun said: "We've had a strong start to the year. Our performance this quarter reflects our unwavering focus on staying close to the consumer, executing locally and managing complexity."
Risk to watch for: the pending Coca-Cola Beverages Africa sale, ongoing IRS tax litigation and a roughly 4% headwind from acquisitions and divestitures. Shares trade at a P/E of 28, not cheap for a mid-single-digit growth business.
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