Altria Group Inc (MO)

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Altria Group, Inc. (NYSE:MO) Forecasted to Post Q4 2020 Earnings of $0.97 Per Share
By: MarketBeat | October 15, 2020

Altria Group, Inc. (NYSE:MO) - Investment analysts at Jefferies Financial Group lifted their Q4 2020 earnings per share (EPS) estimates for shares of Altria Group in a report issued on Tuesday, October 13th. Jefferies Financial Group analyst O. Bennett now expects that the company will earn $0.97 per share for the quarter, up from their prior forecast of $0.95. Jefferies Financial Group also issued estimates for Altria Group's FY2021 earnings at $4.51 EPS, FY2022 earnings at $4.88 EPS and FY2023 earnings at $5.31 EPS.

A number of other equities analysts have also commented on MO. Piper Sandler reissued a "buy" rating and set a $57.00 price target on shares of Altria Group in a research note on Tuesday, July 7th. Barclays downgraded Altria Group from an "overweight" rating to an "equal weight" rating and decreased their price objective for the company from $50.00 to $43.00 in a research report on Wednesday, July 8th. Deutsche Bank Aktiengesellschaft upped their price objective on Altria Group from $50.00 to $51.00 and gave the company a "buy" rating in a research report on Wednesday, July 22nd. ValuEngine downgraded Altria Group from a "sell" rating to a "strong sell" rating in a research report on Thursday, August 6th. Finally, Citigroup upped their price objective on Altria Group from $45.00 to $46.00 and gave the company a "buy" rating in a research report on Thursday, July 30th. One equities research analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, four have assigned a hold rating and eight have issued a buy rating to the stock. Altria Group currently has an average rating of "Buy" and an average target price of $49.67.

Shares of Altria Group stock opened at $39.55 on Thursday. The stock has a 50 day moving average of $41.22 and a 200 day moving average of $40.24. Altria Group has a 12 month low of $30.95 and a 12 month high of $51.78. The firm has a market cap of $73.50 billion, a PE ratio of -76.06, a PEG ratio of 2.26 and a beta of 0.51. The company has a current ratio of 0.75, a quick ratio of 0.54 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 4.76. Altria Group (NYSE:MO) last released its quarterly earnings data on Tuesday, July 28th. The company reported $1.09 earnings per share for the quarter, topping analysts' consensus estimates of $1.06 by $0.03. The firm had revenue of $5.06 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $5.08 billion. Altria Group had a positive return on equity of 109.11% and a negative net margin of 3.57%. The business's quarterly revenue was down 2.5% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted $1.10 earnings per share.

A number of large investors have recently added to or reduced their stakes in MO. Capital World Investors lifted its stake in Altria Group by 10.9% in the first quarter. Capital World Investors now owns 82,778,790 shares of the company's stock worth $3,201,056,000 after acquiring an additional 8,150,622 shares during the period. State Street Corp lifted its stake in Altria Group by 5.2% in the first quarter. State Street Corp now owns 80,112,432 shares of the company's stock worth $3,162,460,000 after acquiring an additional 3,957,880 shares during the period. SG Americas Securities LLC lifted its position in shares of Altria Group by 2,712.5% during the second quarter. SG Americas Securities LLC now owns 3,810,462 shares of the company's stock valued at $149,561,000 after buying an additional 3,956,319 shares during the last quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. lifted its position in shares of Altria Group by 17.9% during the second quarter. Charles Schwab Investment Management Inc. now owns 25,782,544 shares of the company's stock valued at $1,011,965,000 after buying an additional 3,921,396 shares during the last quarter. Finally, FIL Ltd lifted its position in shares of Altria Group by 748.3% during the second quarter. FIL Ltd now owns 3,190,211 shares of the company's stock valued at $125,216,000 after buying an additional 2,814,121 shares during the last quarter. 62.61% of the stock is owned by institutional investors.

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which was paid on Friday, October 9th. Stockholders of record on Tuesday, September 15th were paid a dividend of $0.86 per share. This is a positive change from Altria Group's previous quarterly dividend of $0.84. This represents a $3.44 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 8.70%. The ex-dividend date was Monday, September 14th. Altria Group's payout ratio is currently 81.52%.

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