The main piece of news driving financial markets lately has been the now infamous coronavirus, which aside from causing untold social costs worldwide, has left investors scrambling to determine the short and long-term impacts to their portfolios. Given the pressure that Altria (MO) has already been facing in recent years from government regulations and weak cigarette volumes as well as their poorly timed Juul (JUUL) investment, this could have hardly occurred at a worse time.

This virus is a very new development and thus there are still many unknown aspects regarding its behavior. Although since it attacks lungs it is not difficult to imagine that the respiratory health of a patient would be especially important, as mentioned in a recent CNN article. Naturally this would include people who not only smoke cigarettes but also marijuana as well as those who vape. Since the majority of their earnings are still derived from cigarettes, regardless of their Juul (JUUL) and Cronos (OTC:CRON) investments, this analysis will focus on cigarettes.

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