Coca-Cola: what's the fizz about? Who sells Coca-Cola on the basis of one quarterly report? Coke's shares dropped by a few per cent after the company reported its fourth quarter on Tuesday, suggesting that someone was spooked by slightly weaker than expected growth in volume (3 per cent) and revenue (4 per cent). The dip is an opportunity, surely, for real Coke investors. They know - as Warren Buffett knows - that Coke is to be held, not traded. It sells a universally loved product, under an unrivalled global brand, at massive scale, earning outsized returns. Anyone who bought the stock 20 years ago has enjoyed returns of more than 400 per cent. Undoubtedly the thing to do is buy now, and check in again in 2033. Or perhaps not. About those returns: over those two decades, as well as more recent periods, Coke has outperformed the S&P 500 but has slightly underperformed the S&P sub-index of consumer staples companies, to which it belongs. That underperformance extends to the 2007-2009 market crash, when brands such as Coca-Cola were supposed to be safe havens. Owning a consumer staples ETF would, after all, avoid worries about whether sweet beverages are in slow decline. Coke's return on capital, at about 12 per cent, is good but not exceptional by the standards of peer food and beverage companies such as Pepsi or Nestlé. Its global footprint gives it diversification but, because it has been global for so long, its geographic reach does not give growth much of a boost. In the past year, for example, revenue growth in North America was actually faster than in Asia. And yes, in the drinks business, scale helps, but it has its limits. The company expects to achieve very little incremental operating leverage in 2013. Coke is a great company but its stock is not cheap at 18 times forward earnings. The first step to assessing its value is ignoring its reputation.