[ad_1]
Tobacco company shares had some of their biggest winnings in the world on Wednesday after the Food and Drug Administration said that it was likely to have an e-cigarette due to their popularity among teenagers, which he said had reached "an epidemic proportion."
"While we are committed to advancing policies that promote the potential of e-cigarettes to help smokers move away from combustible cigarettes," FDA Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said in a statement. "We can not afford a whole new generation to become addicted to nicotine."
Investors appeared to be in the market for traditional tobacco companies, which have struggled to develop widely-used alternatives.
Read: FDA chief considers banning all flavored e-cigarettes
British American Tobacco
BATS, -1.98%
BTI, -1.26%
rose 5.9% on Wednesday, marking the U.K.-listed stock's biggest one-day percentage increase since the financial crisis. Volume of 4.1 million shares in midday trade was about triple the full-day average.
Altria Group Inc.
MO -2.60%
shares rose 6.7%, also marking their biggest one-day percentage increase since 2008; volume of 10.6 million shares was nearly double the full-day average. Philip Morris International Inc.
PM, -0.51%
shares rose 3.4% on Wednesday, in their fourth-largest one-day increase in five years.
Shares down 2.3%, Altria shares down 2.5% and Philip Morris shares down 0.5%.
Related: Young people apparently do not realize these popular 'burnt cream' e-cigarettes contain nicotine
Related: Cigarette maker stocks plunge on FDA announcement, but health experts are skeptical
The FDA has in particular raised concerns about the popular e-cigarette maker Juul Labs, which sells such flavors as "creme brulee" and "cool cucumber." One estimate pegs Juul's hold on the e-cigarette market at nearly 50%.
The regulator said on Wednesday that it has asked Juul and others, including British American Tobacco's VUs and Altria's MarkTen, to respond to sufficient plans to reduce their use. (The other two companies that the FDA reaches out, Imperial Brands
IMB -2.69%
and Japan Tobacco Inc.
2914 + 1.49%
, also had shares rise on Wednesday.)
Though one of the following is a relatively small amount of cigarettes when it comes to nicotine strength, only a minority of young people were familiar with, or had recently used the Juul, knowing that it contained the addictive stimulant, according to one peer- reviewed study.
Robin Koval, chief executive and president of the Truth Initiative, is a nonprofit organization that campaigns against youth smoking, praised the "strong statement" made by the FDA on Wednesday. At the same time, Koval urged that the regulator has a grace period for e-cigarettes that were already on the market – previously extended to 2022 – to end this month.
Young people who start using e-cigarettes are "many times more likely" to use tobacco products like cigarettes, she noted.
"Koval said," There is a lot of nicotine addiction to this problem, "Koval said. "We are going to have a look at how we help these young people transition away from nicotine completely. But that's not a point to put the brakes on now. "
British American Tobacco shares have dropped 26.6% year-to-date, Altria shares have dropped 14.5% and Philip Morris shares have dropped 24.5%, compared with a 8.4% year-to-date rise in the S & P
SPX, + 0.32%
and a 5.5% rise in the Dow Jones Industrial Average
DJIA, + 0.31%
.
Source link
