Insiders Sell Altria Group

The average selling price was $62.37 to $62.40 per share

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Insiders of Altria Group Inc. (MO, Financial) disposed shares of the U.S. tobacco giant, federal securities filings show.

W. Hildebrandt Surgner Jr., corporate secretary and senior assistant general counsel of Altria Group, sold 3,200 shares of his company at a price of $62.34 per share.

After the transaction on March 2, Surgner has a volume of 26,757 beneficially-owned shares. The direct ownership in the tobacco giant includes restricted stock units (RSUs) for 6,725 shares and a volume of 20,032 shares that the insider jointly holds with his wife.

Surgner is also the holder of an indirect ownership in Altria of 75 shares.

Brian W. Quigley, president and chief executive officer of the U.S.-based Smokeless Tobacco Co., a subsidiary of Altria Group, decreased his direct ownership in the tobacco giant by selling 3,464 shares at a price of $62.4 per share. Quigley's holdings, which include restricted stock units for 10,878 shares, totals 20,702 shares.

Quigley also indirectly holds 20,884 shares of Altria Group, of which a volume of 20,837 shares refers to the company’s Deferred Profit-Sharing Plan.

How insiders of a company are moving their holdings is always of interest to investors because it may predict the next upside or downside in the market value of a stock. In the case of Altria Group, insider actions to dispose of shares may signal the anticipation of a small correction in the market value of the U.S. tobacco giant. As of March 6, the stock closed at $64.77 per share on the New York Stock Exchange.

For the 52-weeks ending March 6, Altria Group lost nearly 15%, underperforming the S&P 500 by almost 30%:

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Source: Yahoo Finance

The loss pushed the U.S. tobacco stock under the 200, 100 and 50-SMA lines and 6.4% below the mid-point of the 52-week range of $60.01 to $77.79 per share. The current share price is only $4.7 above the 52-week low. Altria Group has a market capitalization of $123.09 billion.

There isn’t any doubt that Altria is a good buying opportunity at the current market valuations. Wall Street recommends buying the stock, and the average target price is $77.23 per share.

Currently, Altria Group has a forward price-earnings ratio of 17.42 times versus an industry median of 17.21 and the forward yield is 4.32% versus an industry average of 4.68%.

The Securities and Exchange filing of March 5 also reports a discretionary transaction made last week by Kathryn B. McQuade, a non-employee director of Altria Group who has transferred a volume of 1,703 share equivalents into another investment account. The deal was completed under the Deferred Fee Plan for independent directors of the tobacco giant and at an average price of $63.73 per share. McQuade has a direct ownership in Altria Group consisting of 26,722 shares. The holding includes 23,638 deferred shares held by McQuade in the stock compensation plan for directors who are not employees of Altria Group Inc.

Disclosure: I have no positions in any security mentioned in this article.