Image Source: Altria Group () — formerly Philip Morris — is one of the world’s largest producers and marketers of cigarettes and other tobacco products. However, the company’s current motto is “Moving Beyond Smoking” as it pushes smoke-free products and harm reduction.Regardless of your stance on tobacco stocks, Altria Group (MO) still does more than $20 billion in annual revenues and has a market cap of just under $90 billion. As shown below, the stock has also been trending steadily higher for the last six months.While Altria has seen share-price appreciation over the last six months, it is most known for its high-dividend yield. MO currently has a dividend yield of more than 7.5%, which makes it the second-highest-yielding stock in the S&P 500 behind Walgreens (). According to , Altria has increased its dividend for 54 consecutive years, making it one of the longest-running .
Hypothetically, had you invested $10,000 in Altria Group (MO) shares at the start of 1990, re-invested dividends, and held to today, your shares would currently be worth roughly $1,041,000. That’s a gain of more than 10,000%!A huge chunk of those gains since 1990 have come from re-investing dividends. As shown below, MO shares are only up 1,549% (8.4% annualized) in price over this time frame compared to its total return of more than 10,000% (14.3% annualized). It will be tough to find a better example of the compounding effects of re-investing big dividend payments than MO. Using the , with no share price appreciation at all, MO’s annual dividend yield of 7.8% would double your money in just over 9 years.Highest And Lowest Country ETF Dividend YieldsSentiment Goes According To Seasonality Horrible Small Business Earnings
