Stocks / MO
What If You Had Invested in Altria 10 Years Ago?
Altria Group, Inc. (MO) with real monthly prices, dividends reinvested, through November 2026.
MO $76.12 ▼ -1.88% last close, Nov 06, 2026
If you had invested $1,000 in MO in November 2016, today it would be worth
$2,369
Same $1,000 in the S&P 500 (SPY): $3,907
If you had put $500 a month into MO since November 2016, your $60,500 would be worth today
$131,804
Same plan in the S&P 500 (SPY): $129,289
More options in the What If calculator.
MO live price chart
MO returns by period
| Period | Total return | Per year | $1,000 became | SPY per year |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 year | +37.7% | +37.7% | $1,377 | +8.8% |
| 3 years | +126.1% | +31.3% | $2,261 | +18.7% |
| 5 years | +162.1% | +21.3% | $2,621 | +11.5% |
| 10 years | +136.9% | +9.0% | $2,369 | +14.6% |
| 20 years | +1217.8% | +13.8% | $13,178 | +10.6% |
| Since 1985 | +84571.9% | +17.5% | $846,719 | — |
MO year by year
Best full year: 2000 (+105.9%). Worst: 1999 (-54.7%).
| Year | MO | SPY | What happened |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 (so far) | +38.4% | +8.7% | |
| 2025 | +18.2% | +17.7% | |
| 2024 | +40.8% | +24.9% | |
| 2023 | -3.7% | +26.2% | |
| 2022 | +4.4% | -18.2% | |
| 2021 | +24.2% | +28.7% | |
| 2020 | -10.2% | +18.3% | |
| 2019 | +7.9% | +31.2% | |
| 2018 | -27.1% | -4.6% | Altria paid $12.8 billion for its JUUL stake in December, and the stock fell about 27% for the year. |
| 2017 | +9.4% | +21.7% | |
| 2016 | +20.4% | +12.0% | |
| 2015 | +23.1% | +1.2% | |
| 2014 | +34.5% | +13.5% | |
| 2013 | +28.5% | +32.3% | |
| 2012 | +11.7% | +16.0% | |
| 2011 | +27.7% | +1.9% | |
| 2010 | +33.9% | +15.1% | |
| 2009 | +40.4% | +26.4% | |
| 2008 | -31.3% | -36.8% | |
| 2007 | +22.2% | +5.1% | |
| 2000 | +105.9% | -9.7% | Fears of ruinous lawsuits eased and investors moved from tech into steady companies. The stock more than doubled. |
| 1999 | -54.7% | +20.4% | Tobacco lawsuits, including a Florida class action seeking enormous damages, cut the stock by more than half. |
MO: all at once or every month?
Take $12,000: all of it on day one, or $1,000 a month for a year. Across every starting month since 1985 (491 of them), the lump sum was ahead after 12 months in 374 (76%). Altria's steady long-term climb made investing at once the usual winner. Monthly buying won mainly in 1999 and in the 2017 to 2019 slide, when JUUL losses and falling cigarette volumes weighed on the stock. The best case for monthly investing was a start in June 1999, when it finished the year 49% ahead.
Worst drop
MO's worst fall in this history was -61.6%, a loss of more than half, from November 1998 to February 2000. Getting back to the old high took until April 2001: 14 months from the bottom and 2.4 years from the peak. $1,000 invested at that peak shrank to about $384 at the low.
Tobacco litigation. After the 1998 settlement with the states, investors feared that new lawsuits, especially a Florida class action that later produced a $145 billion verdict, could ruin the cigarette makers. The stock lost more than 60% in about a year, then rebounded fast once the worst fears faded.
Altria dividends
MO paid $4.29 per share over the last 12 months, in March, June, September and December. At $76.12 that is 5.64%, a high yield, so a large part of the return arrives as cash. From 2020 to 2025 the yearly payout grew +4.1% a year, steadily. The yearly total did not fall once in the last ten years. Amounts are adjusted for splits.
| Year | Dividends / share | Change | Yield |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2025 | $4.16 | +4.0% | 7.21% |
| 2024 | $4.00 | +4.2% | 7.65% |
| 2023 | $3.84 | +4.3% | 9.52% |
| 2022 | $3.68 | +4.5% | 8.05% |
| 2021 | $3.52 | +3.5% | 7.43% |
| 2020 | $3.40 | +3.7% | 8.29% |
| 2019 | $3.28 | +9.3% | 6.57% |
| 2018 | $3.00 | +18.1% | 6.07% |
| 2017 | $2.54 | +8.1% | 3.56% |
| 2016 | $2.35 | +8.3% | 3.48% |
Yield = each year’s dividends divided by the price at the end of the year.
MO dividend history: last 12 payments
| Ex-dividend date | Amount | Change |
|---|---|---|
| Sep 15, 2026 | $1.1100 | +4.7% |
| Jun 15, 2026 | $1.0600 | +0.0% |
| Mar 25, 2026 | $1.0600 | +0.0% |
| Dec 26, 2025 | $1.0600 | +0.0% |
| Sep 15, 2025 | $1.0600 | +3.9% |
| Jun 16, 2025 | $1.0200 | +0.0% |
| Mar 25, 2025 | $1.0200 | +0.0% |
| Dec 26, 2024 | $1.0200 | +0.0% |
| Sep 16, 2024 | $1.0200 | +4.1% |
| Jun 14, 2024 | $0.9800 | +0.0% |
| Mar 22, 2024 | $0.9800 | +0.0% |
| Dec 20, 2023 | $0.9800 | — |
How much Altria do you need for $1,000 a month?
About $212,923, or roughly 2,797 shares at $76.12. That uses MO's last 12 months of dividends ($4.29 a share, a 5.64% yield) and is before tax.
| Income | Invest | Shares | Paid as |
|---|---|---|---|
| $500 | $106,462 | 1,399 | $1,500/qtr |
| $1,000 | $212,923 | 2,797 | $3,000/qtr |
| $2,000 | $425,846 | 5,594 | $6,000/qtr |
MO pays quarterly (ex-dividend in Mar, Jun, Sep, Dec), so “$1,000 a month” really arrives as about $3,000 four times a year.
The payout grew 4.1% a year over the last five years. If it kept that pace, about $142,231 invested today, with nothing added and nothing reinvested, would be paying $1,000 a month ten years from now. That is a projection, not a promise.
These are mostly qualified dividends, taxed at 0%, 15% or 20% at the federal level depending on your income, plus any state tax. In an IRA or Roth IRA there is no tax on them along the way.
Want to build toward it with monthly buys? Try the dividend calculator with MO's numbers filled in.
Stock splits
- May 1966: 3-for-1
- May 1969: 2-for-1
- June 1974: 2-for-1
- June 1979: 2-for-1
- April 1986: 2-for-1
- October 1989: 4-for-1
- April 1997: 3-for-1
One share bought before 1966 is 576 shares today.
About Altria
| Company | Altria Group, Inc. |
| Listed | NYSE (as Philip Morris Companies until 2003) |
| Sector | Consumer staples (tobacco) |
| Dividend | Paid; raised more than 50 times since 1969 |
Altria sells Marlboro and other cigarettes in the United States, along with cigars and smokeless tobacco. Until 2003 it was called Philip Morris Companies. It spun off Kraft Foods in 2007 and its international cigarette business, Philip Morris International, in 2008.
Fewer Americans smoke every year, so Altria sells fewer cigarettes almost every year. It has kept profits growing by raising prices, which smokers have mostly accepted, and by paying out most of its earnings as dividends. That combination made Philip Morris the best-performing of the original S&P 500 companies from 1957 to 2003 in Jeremy Siegel's well-known study.
Its attempts to move beyond cigarettes have gone badly. Altria paid $12.8 billion for 35% of e-cigarette maker JUUL in 2018 and later wrote off nearly all of it, and it also lost money on cannabis company Cronos.
Why the dividend matters so much
Altria pays out most of its earnings as dividends, so its yield is usually several times the S&P 500's. With little reason to reinvest in a shrinking business, it returns the cash instead. Reinvesting those dividends produced most of Altria's long-term return, which is why the total-return figures on this page are so far above the price chart.
A shrinking market
U.S. cigarette volumes have fallen by a few percent a year for decades, and Altria's own shipments decline in most years. Price increases have kept revenue roughly steady, but the strategy depends on smokers continuing to accept them.
Questions about MO
Did MO beat the S&P 500?
Yes. Over the last 20 years it was ahead by 3.1 percentage points a year: +13.8% a year for MO against +10.6% for SPY, dividends reinvested. It also fell harder at its worst (-61.6% against -50.8% for SPY over the same history).
Is Altria the same company as Philip Morris International?
No. They were one company until March 2008, when Altria spun off PMI. Altria sells Marlboro in the U.S.; PMI sells it everywhere else, along with the IQOS heated-tobacco device. They are separate stocks.