Philip Morris International manufactures and sells cigarettes, other nicotine-containing products, smoke-free products, and related electronic devices and accessories. PMI has invested more than $10 billion to develop and commercialize smoke-free products for adults who would otherwise continue to smoke, with the goal of completely ending the sale of cigarettes. PM's smoke-free products are available for sale in more than 90 markets. Philip Morris International was spun off from Altria in 2008. The company has approximately 85,000 employees. The shares are a component of the S&P 500.

The stock market is headed into earnings season on a sugar high, so corporate America better deliver the goods or else. Generally, a flat-to-weak market going into earnings season is preferable to a market with rip-roaring stock prices. Does the market know something the rest of us do not? The quarter, as well as the rest of the year, is already expected to be very good -- and maybe it's just the stock market's way of catching up. Widening the screen, another perspective is that the major stock indices have done very little on a net basis for most of the last six months. So there has been no pullback of any substance yet, as the S&P 500 rose 1% on Wednesday, the Nasdaq popped 1.6%, and the Nasdaq 100 ripped 1.7%. All of the indices closed at all-time highs (ATHs). The S&P 100, Invesco S&P 500 Top 50 ETF (XLG), the Technology Sector SPDR (XLK), and the VanEck Semiconductor ETF (SMH) also reached ATHs. Other tech industries hitting ATHs and remaining on a tear since March 30 include electrical components & equipment and computer hardware. Crypto, which we have talked about recently, had a good day, with Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETC) both jumping almost 3%. From a price perspective, BTC is still behaving better, as it broke above the key bear-market trendline off the peaks since October. BTC also recaptured its 100-day average, and at its intraday high, it retraced 50% of its last leg lower from mid-January until February. ETH has not broken its bear-market trendline that sits just above current prices and has retraced only 38.2% of its last leg down.

Created from the international operations of Altria in 2008, Philip Morris International sells cigarettes and reduced-risk products, including heat sticks, vapes, and oral nicotine offerings, primarily outside of the US. With the 2023 acquisition of Swedish Match, a leading manufacturer of traditional oral tobacco products and nicotine pouches primarily in the US and Scandinavia, PMI is not only dominant in smokable products but also has the Iqos and Zyn brands, which respectively dominate heated tobacco and nicotine pouches in most markets. It also owns the Veev brand in vapes.

This pick list highlights constituents of the Morningstar US Large Cap Index that we believe offer investors the best risk-adjusted return prospects. Stocks of large-cap companies where neither growth nor value characteristics predominate. Stocks in the top 70% of the capitalization of the U.S. equity market are defined as large cap.