Altria Group (NYSE:MO) Updates FY24 Earnings Guidance

Altria Group (NYSE:MO) issued an update on its FY24 earnings guidance on Thursday morning. The company provided EPS guidance of $5.05-$5.17 for the period, compared to the consensus EPS estimate of $5.08. Altria Group also updated its FY 2024 guidance to 5.050-5.170 EPS.

Altria Group Price Performance

MO traded down $0.17 on Friday, hitting $43.37. The company had a trading volume of 13,793,861 shares, compared to its average volume of 12,018,917. The company’s fifty day moving average price is $42.12 and its 200 day moving average price is $41.46. Altria Group has a 1-year low of $39.06 and a 1-year high of $48.04. The stock has a market cap of $74.49 billion, a price-to-earnings ratio of 9.56, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 2.57 and a beta of 0.65.

Altria Group (NYSE:MO) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Thursday, April 25th. The company reported $1.15 EPS for the quarter, hitting analysts’ consensus estimates of $1.15. The company had revenue of $4.72 billion during the quarter, compared to analyst estimates of $4.71 billion. Altria Group had a negative return on equity of 244.55% and a net margin of 33.21%. The company’s quarterly revenue was down 1.0% compared to the same quarter last year. During the same period in the previous year, the company earned $1.18 earnings per share. On average, sell-side analysts forecast that Altria Group will post 5.11 EPS for the current year.

Altria Group Dividend Announcement

The company also recently disclosed a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Tuesday, April 30th. Stockholders of record on Monday, March 25th will be given a dividend of $0.98 per share. This represents a $3.92 dividend on an annualized basis and a dividend yield of 9.04%. The ex-dividend date is Friday, March 22nd. Altria Group’s dividend payout ratio is presently 85.78%.

Altria Group announced that its board has initiated a share repurchase plan on Thursday, February 1st that permits the company to buyback $1.00 billion in outstanding shares. This buyback authorization permits the company to purchase up to 1.4% of its stock through open market purchases. Stock buyback plans are typically an indication that the company’s management believes its stock is undervalued.

Analyst Ratings Changes

MO has been the topic of a number of analyst reports. StockNews.com cut Altria Group from a buy rating to a hold rating in a research report on Sunday, April 14th. UBS Group boosted their price objective on Altria Group from $36.10 to $36.50 and gave the stock a sell rating in a research note on Monday, April 8th. Finally, Stifel Nicolaus reissued a buy rating and issued a $50.00 price objective on shares of Altria Group in a research note on Monday, March 25th. One investment analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, two have given a hold rating and two have assigned a buy rating to the company’s stock. Based on data from MarketBeat.com, the stock currently has a consensus rating of Hold and an average target price of $46.90.

About Altria Group

Altria Group, Inc, through its subsidiaries, manufactures and sells smokeable and oral tobacco products in the United States. The company offers cigarettes primarily under the Marlboro brand; large cigars and pipe tobacco under the Black & Mild brand; moist smokeless tobacco and snus products under the Copenhagen, Skoal, Red Seal, and Husky brands; oral nicotine pouches under the on! brand; and e-vapor products under the NJOY ACE brand.