Barclays Reaffirms Bullish View on The Coca-Cola Company (KO) with Higher Price Target

Barclays Reaffirms Bullish View on The Coca-Cola Company (KO) with Higher Price Target Vardah Gill Tue, May 26, 2026 at 4:02 PM GMT+2 2 min read BCS KO The Coca-Cola Company (NYSE: KO ) is included among the Dividend Stock Portfolio For Retirement: Top 12 Stock Picks . Barclays Reaffirms Bullish View on The Coca-Cola Company (KO) with Higher Price Target urbanbuzz / Shutterstock. com On May 21, Barclays raised its price recommendation on The Coca-Cola Company (NYSE:KO) to $89 from $85.

It reiterated an Overweight rating on the shares. During the Q1 2026 earnings call, President & CFO John Murphy said the company continued to expect organic revenue growth of 4% to 5% for 2026. He also noted that management now expected comparable currency-neutral EPS growth, excluding acquisitions and divestitures, to come in between 6% and 7%.

Murphy added that the company now projected comparable earnings per share growth of 8% to 9% compared to the $3 reported in 2025. He said this was higher than the previous forecast of 7% to 8%, mainly because of a lower expected effective tax rate. According to Murphy, Coca-Cola now expects its 2026 underlying effective tax rate to be 19.

9%, which is one percentage point lower than the earlier estimate. He also said divestitures were still expected to create an approximate four-point headwind to comparable net revenue and about a one-point headwind to comparable earnings per share. These projections assume that the pending sale of Coca-Cola Beverages Africa will close in the second half of 2026.

The Coca-Cola Company (NYSE:KO) is a global beverage company with operations across Europe, the Middle East and Africa, Latin America, North America, Asia Pacific, and Bottling Investments. The company sells multiple beverage brands across a wide range of categories worldwide. While we acknowledge the potential of KO as an investment, we believe certain AI stocks offer greater upside potential and carry less downside risk.

If you're looking for an extremely undervalued AI stock that also stands to benefit significantly from Trump-era tariffs and the onshoring trend, see our free report on the   best short-term AI stock . READ NEXT:  10 High Yield Stocks For Lasting Retirement Income  and  10 Best Stocks Under $15 to Buy Right Now Disclosure: None. Follow Insider Monkey on Google News .