Altria Group Inc (MO)

(A Top Pick July 12/13. Down 0.45%.) Essentially with this you are buying the dividend. Pays out 80% of its EPS. Not a growth company but trades like a bond. Normally you get into this in the summertime and hold it into December.

(Best call ever made.) Sometimes, what you don’t own is more important than what you do. In March 1993, he bought shares in Philip Morris (now Altria), the largest tobacco company in the US. Generic products were starting to eat into the business. He bought it at $61. An analyst said that something terrible was going to happen in the industry in order to fight the generic competition. Within a week, he sold his holdings for $64. The next day, the company announced they were cutting the price of their cigarettes by 20% and the stock instantly went down 26%.

Cash cow that pays a high dividend and tends to do well when the market has a volatile time during the summer period. Last year it didn’t work out very well because it had such a run up coming into the seasonal period. This year we have seen it perform at market just as we are getting to the seasonal period. Dividend 4.78%. Typically outperforms the market from July 19 to December 19.

Thinks there is no better business to be in then tobacco. Margins in the business are fabulous.

Has made quite a profit. Should she Sell, Trim, etc.? He has disciplines that focus on individual companies. If he has a company that move up from 5% to 7% or 8% of a portfolio, he trims it off to reduce the holdings. This company is a pretty standard grower as people are not going to stop smoking. Pays a great dividend.

(Market Call Minute) Pulled back and he could own it.

(Market Call Minute.) Great international growth. A little bit extended right now. Good dividend yield and slow growth play.

(A Top Pick Oct 19/11. Up 29.8%.) Even though tobacco consumption rates are declining, the litigation area is also declining. They have a lot of ability to raise prices. Strong dividend yield of 5.2%. Expects this to grow by 6% per year over the next 3 years. Very low beta.

This represents a defensive type of stock. Cigarettes have been challenged from an ethical standpoint for many years and people had expected a bigger impact on the price of the company. Nothing is going to change on the fundamentals for the next while. 4.8% dividend.

He does not like investing in companies that kill people directly. As an investment, he is amazed at how well cigarette companies can continue to do. The company is constantly profitable and has lawsuits all the time in many different countries yet they somehow manage to pay them and move on. Nice dividend payer. BV of about $2. If you strip out the goodwill, you end up with negative BV.