Altria Surprises With Its Latest Reduced-Risk Move

Cigarette smoking has been on the decline for decades, and tobacco giant Altria Group (NYSE: MO)has had to balance its pricing power against adverse long-term volume trends to try to maximize profitseven as revenue growth has been somewhat under pressure. In place of traditional cigarettes, consumers have increasingly moved toward alternatives like e-cigarettes and vaping products, and even the largest players in the tobacco space have made efforts to fill in their product lines with newer offerings designed to capitalize on that demand.