America’s Best Dividend Stock Has A Good Year
While megatech stocks chase AI billions and swing wildly, one tobacco giant quietly delivers the kind of income and stability that most growth investors dismiss until the market turns ugly.
This post may contain links from our sponsors and affiliates, and Flywheel Publishing may receive compensation for actions taken through them.
Altria (NYSE: MO | MO Price Prediction) shares, which have one of the best dividend performances in the S&P 500, have tracked the market this year. It may be “built” for safety, but investors have gained 13% in price, which matches the S&P 500.
Altria has also outperformed many of the megatech stocks that people are supposed to buy for their huge price surges. Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA)is down 23% this year. Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) is up only 2%. Apple’s (NASDAQ: AAPL) stock move up this year is about the same as Altria’s. Meta (NASDAQ: META) is down 10%.
Altria, a cigarette company, has no AI exposure. That means the hundreds of billions of dollars several of America’s largest tech companies are spending represent a financial risk. Altria has almost none. If AI explodes, as many investors think it will, the safest safe-haven stocks offer the best protection.
Better, much better, than all of these, Altria has a yield of 6.5%. It has raised its dividend 60 times in the last 56 years.
Altria’s top brand, which accounts for over 90% of its sales, is Marlboro. It used to be listed among the world’s most valuable brands and was sometimes in the top 10. It has been dropped completely from those lists, likely because it is tobacco, which, because of its health effects, is shied away from. It is still, however, probably the best-known cigarette brand in the world.
So, regardless of its yield benefits and strong balance, the company remains a difficult investment for many because of its products. The plain fact is that the CDC reports that 480,000 Americans die from smoking every year. Worldwide, the figure is above 8 million. It is the largest preventable cause of death globally. Altria is a “sin stock,” a term usually applied to all tobacco and alcohol companies.
In the second quarter Altria’s revenue was flat at $6.1 billion. Diluted EPS dropped 3% to $1.37. Another reason for people who want stock “safety” is Altria’s series of buybacks. The company announced, “Through the first half, we repurchased 5.3 million shares at an average price of $62.78 per share, for a total cost of $335 million. As of June 30, 2026, we had $665 million remaining under our $2 billion share repurchase program, which expires on December 31, 2026.” Finally, it narrowed its full-year guidance.
“Sin stocks” will always have some people who object to owning them. Some institutions as well may decide it looks bad to own them. For everyone else, Altria is a nearly perfect stock to hold against what is an inevitable market selloff.
Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.
Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.
McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.
His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.
A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.
TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.
McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.
