Altria Becomes Dividend King of S&P 500

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Feb 3, 9:15AM EST

Quick Read

Altria Group Inc. (NYSE: MO) now has the best yield of any stock in the S&P 500.
Furthermore, the cigarette maker has raised its dividend 59 times in the past 55 years.

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Altria Becomes Dividend King of S&P 500 — © Bigc Studio / Shutterstock.com

Cigarette maker Altria Group Inc. (NYSE: MO | MO Price Prediction) now has the best yield of any stock in the S&P 500 at 8%. There is a chance that if there is a flight to safety because of tariffs, then shares surge. Aside from the dividend, the stock is up 21% in the past year, which is just short of the S&P 500’s performance. For stockholders, it is an impressive double-barreled option. The company has raised its dividend 59 times in the past 55 years.

According to Yahoo, “Altria has been able to offset the volume declines on its balance sheet through regular price hikes, allowing it to increase earnings each year and fund increases to its dividend each year.”

Altria’s finances are boring. Revenue was flat in the fourth quarter at $6 billion. Per-share earnings rose an impressive 54% to $1.79. The company commented on next year. “We expect to deliver 2025 full-year adjusted diluted EPS in a range of $5.22 to $5.37. This range represents an adjusted diluted EPS growth rate of 2% to 5% from a base of $5.12 in 2024.”

One issue for Altria is that it is still a one-product company. In the cigarette part of its business, Marlboro is over 90% of sales.

Altria has a good deal of headroom to raise dividends well into the future. It has over $3 billion of cash on its balance sheet and nothing to invest that in.

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

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.