Tobacco giant Altria announces layoffs to cut costs (490+)

Market Watch ^ | January 28, 2016 | Tripp Mickle and Chelsey Dulaney

[2ndDivisionVet]

U.S. tobacco giant Altria Group Inc. MO, +2.48% on Thursday said it would cut roughly 5% of its workforce in an effort to reduce costs by $300 million annually as industry volumes decline.

The Marlboro maker announced the layoffs on the same day it reported profit and revenue for the fourth quarter that missed Wall Street expectations as cigarette shipments slipped and earnings declined from its stake in SABMiller PLC's beer business.

Altria's earnings rose slightly to $1.25 billion, or 64 cents a share, from $1.24 billion, or 63 cents a share, a year earlier.

The results foreshadowed some of the challenges facing the U.S.'s largest tobacco company, which commits to deliver 7% to 9% annual earnings growth....

[umgud]

Bloomberg prolly jumping with joy.

[zeestephen]

Altria (MO) was one of the best performing stocks of the last seven years.

Since the bottom of the Great Recession in 2009, Altria stock went from $15 to $60, and it paid a 3%-4% dividend every year.

[If You Want It Fixed - Fix It]

Maybe the could go work for some other carcinogen maker or a meat dye maker? I feel awful.

[proxy_user]

3-4%? For those of us who paid in the mid-teens, it is 15% on our original investment every year.

[MSF BU]

Depends on your age. If you’re my age it is over 100% yield on cost.

[zeestephen]

Re: “3-4%? For those of us who paid in the mid-teens, it is 15% on our original investment every year.”

Yes. Congratulations for buying at the bottom.

[proxy_user]

My only regret is I only bought 1000 shares.

[zeestephen]

I bought Altria after the Dot-com bust.

It bounced around between 10 and 20 for about 5 years.

I got nervous about tobacco lawsuit risk and general market risk in late 2007 and sold it.

The years 2000-2008 were not kind to my now very modest portfolio.

I gambled big time on Dot-com penny stocks in the spring of 2001 and almost tripled my money.

Then, I came home from my morning jog on September 11th and discovered that everything I owned on the Pink Sheets had blown right through their limit sell stops.

I'm an older guy, and my risk appetite has never really recovered from that shock.

On the other hand, I'm also grateful I didn't have to jump out of a burning building with my clothes on fire.