MOAltria Group, Inc.

Altria sells cigarettes inside the United States: volumes fall, prices rise, and the dividend remains the main reason to hold the stock.

The domestic market differs from the international one in shrinking faster: the US smoking rate falls year after year. The company offsets that with price, and so far it works — but the mechanism has a limit: too expensive a pack pushes buyers toward discount brands and illicit imports.

The search for a replacement has gone badly. An investment in an e-cigarette maker was written down almost entirely; buying a disposable-device maker brought patent disputes and import bans. Nicotine pouches are the liveliest of the alternatives, but their share is still small.

A separate asset is a stake in a brewer, providing dividend income independent of tobacco. Altria is a dividend aristocrat with one of the market's highest yields, and the sustainability of that payout is the investor's central question.