How To Trade Altria Stock Ahead of Its Upcoming Earnings?

Altria (NYSE:MO) is scheduled to announce its earnings on Wednesday, July 30, 2025. For event-driven traders, understanding historical stock performance around earnings can provide a valuable edge, even though the actual results compared to consensus estimates will be the primary driver.

Historically, Altria’s stock has shown a positive one-day return in 53% of instances following earnings announcements over the past five years. When positive, the median one-day gain was 1.9%, with a maximum one-day gain of 7.8%.

There are two main approaches to consider:

• Pre-Earnings Positioning: Based on historical odds, you could choose to open a position before the earnings release.
• Post-Earnings Positioning: After the earnings are released, you can analyze the immediate and medium-term stock reactions to guide your trading decisions.

Analysts are forecasting Altria to report earnings of $1.38 per share on sales of $5.19 billion. This compares to the prior year’s quarter, where Altria reported earnings of $1.31 per share on revenue of $5.28 billion.

From a fundamental perspective, Altria currently has a market capitalization of $101 billion. Over the last twelve months, the company generated $20 billion in revenue, with $12 billion in operating profits and a net income of $10 billion, indicating strong operational profitability.

That said, if you seek upside with lower volatility than individual stocks, the Trefis High Quality portfolio presents an alternative — having outperformed the S&P 500 and generated returns exceeding 91% since its inception. Also, see – Time To Buy Centene Stock?

See earnings reaction history of all stocks

Image by Markus Distelrath from Pixabay

Altria’s Historical Odds Of Positive Post-Earnings Return

Some observations on one-day (1D) post-earnings returns:

• There are 19 earnings data points recorded over the last five years, with 10 positive and 9 negative one-day (1D) returns observed. In summary, positive 1D returns were seen about 53% of the time.
• Notably, this percentage increases to 55% if we consider data for the last 3 years instead of 5.
• Median of the 10 positive returns = 1.9%, and median of the 9 negative returns = -2.1%

Additional data for observed 5-Day (5D), and 21-Day (21D) returns post earnings are summarized along with the statistics in the table below.

MO 1D, 5D, and 21D Post Earnings Return

Correlation Between 1D, 5D, and 21D Historical Returns

A relatively less risky strategy (though not useful if the correlation is low) is to understand the correlation between short-term and medium-term returns post earnings, find a pair that has the highest correlation, and execute the appropriate trade. For example, if 1D and 5D show the highest correlation, a trader can position themselves “long” for the next 5 days if 1D post-earnings return is positive. Here is some correlation data based on 5-year and 3-year (more recent) history. Note that the correlation 1D_5D refers to the correlation between 1D post-earnings returns and subsequent 5D returns.

MO Correlation Between 1D, 5D and 21D Historical Returns

Is There Any Correlation With Peer Earnings?

Sometimes, peer performance can have influence on post-earnings stock reaction. In fact, the pricing-in might begin before the earnings are announced. Here is some historical data on the past post-earnings performance of Altria stock compared with the stock performance of peers that reported earnings just before Altria. For fair comparison, peer stock returns also represent post-earnings one-day (1D) returns.

MO Correlation With Peer Earnings

Learn more about Trefis RV strategy that has outperformed its all-cap stocks benchmark (combination of all 3, the S&P 500, S&P mid-cap, and Russell 2000), to produce strong returns for investors. Separately, if you want upside with a smoother ride than an individual stock like Altria, consider the High Quality portfolio, which has outperformed the S&P, and clocked >91% returns since inception.

Invest with Trefis Market-Beating Portfolios

See all Trefis Price Estimates