preparation

Investors are bulled up on hypergrowth technology stocks right now, especially anything related to artificial intelligence (AI). I would guess that many readers have large exposure to these AI stocks that have been massive winners in the last few years.

There is nothing inherently wrong with allocating your portfolio to hypergrowth stocks. However, if you are an older or more conservative investor, now may be the perfect time to optimize your portfolio for performing through all market cycles. Hypergrowth AI stocks soar during bull markets, but when the inevitable bear market hits (like in 2022), they can crash. If you are not comfortable with 50% or higher drawdowns, more conservative dividend-paying stocks may be for you.

One ultra-high dividend-yielding stock that has done well so far in 2025 is Altria Group (MO 0.66%). The tobacco and nicotine giant has a dividend yielding over 6%. Does that make it the perfect stock to buy in preparation for a market crash?

Steady tobacco cash flows

Altria owns brands like Marlboro cigarettes, oral tobacco products, cigars, and electronic nicotine vapes. It also has a large investment in Anheuser Busch.

Usage of cigarettes in the United States — Altria’s core market — has been in decline for years. The company has optimized its profits despite these declines through price increases, cost cuts, and financialization of its cigarette business. This has driven consolidated free cash flow at the company to grow by 59% in the last 10 years, hitting $8.7 billion over the last 12 months.

In order to build its business for the future, Altria is slowly investing to move beyond cigarettes. Its cigars business is steady, while electronic vaping and nicotine pouches continue to grow. Its On! nicotine pouch brand reported 26.5% volume growth last quarter. To further expand into new nicotine categories, Altria just partnered with KT&G Corporation out of South Korea for exposure to new nicotine pouch brands and investments into the energy space. It is too early to tell what the effect of this partnership will be, but it shows where Altria is focused for the future of its operations.

Image source: Getty Images.

Steady dividend growth

Cigarettes keep providing Altria with steady cash flow, bolstered by price increases. The stock now has a dividend yield of 6.27%, with its dividend per share payout growing steadily in the past 10 years, up 87.6% over that timespan.

The company is generating free cash flow per share of $5.15, versus the current annual dividend per share of $4.24. This gap between free cash flow and dividend obligations should allow the company to keep growing its dividend payout to shareholders, even at a starting yield of over 6%. Along with share repurchases that reduced shares outstanding and therefore make it easier to raise the dividend per share, Altria has a clear path to keep growing its dividend per share over the next decade, just as it has in the last one.

MO Dividend data by YCharts.

Is Altria Group a buy to prepare for a market crash?

Unlike other trendy businesses such as AI infrastructure investments that may experience huge levels of volatility in a market crash or recession, tobacco businesses such as Altria remain steady through all market environments. In fact, volumes for tobacco and nicotine usage actually improve when the economy is in rough shape.

That makes the stock a perfect buy to balance out a portfolio of hypergrowth AI names. If you own steady dividend stocks like Altria, not only do you get 6%+ back on your investment every year in cash, you might have a stock that does well when the market inevitably crashes. That could give you a counterbalance in your portfolio to take advantage of any dips.

If you are worried about having too much exposure to AI growth stocks, Altria Group may be the perfect ultra-high dividend-yielding stock for you.

During a dark moment in Bing Liu’s “Preparation for the Next Life,” our protagonist, Aishe (Sebiye Behtiyar), seeks guidance in a place she did not think she’d return to: a mosque. An undocumented Uyghur immigrant from China, Aishe has left behind the religion in which she was raised. But feeling alone and stuck in New York City, she turns toward this place of cultural familiarity, where the imam counsels her that she’ll be rewarded for her obedience in her next life. But what about this life, the one she’s living now?

Aishe has been preparing for her next life since she arrived in New York, getting stronger, smarter, faster, so that she can make the leap to an existence that’s more comfortable, safer, more abundant. Like most young girls with big dreams, there’s only one thing that can slow her forward momentum and that is, of course, a boy.

“Preparation for the Next Life” is the narrative feature debut of Academy Award-nominated documentary filmmaker Liu. His much-lauded film “Minding the Gap” is a searing and searching project about his childhood friends, a group of skateboarders he followed over the course of a heady transition period, often turning the camera on himself and his own family.

In “Preparation for the Next Life,” Liu once again trains his lens on the delicate coming-of-age that is the early 20s. As the title of this adaptation of Atticus Lish’s 2014 PEN/Faulkner Award-winning debut novel suggests, it captures a liminal time in which Aishe, in reflecting on her past while getting ready for her future, is surprised by the arrival of a new person who enters her life and asks her to stay in the moment, at least for a little while.

Aishe locks eyes with Brad Skinner (Fred Hechinger) on the street in Queens and they share an immediate intrigue. He’s recently been discharged from the Army, arriving in New York with some cash and a desire to do anything but go home. The young couple fall into lust, then love, over beers in a Latin American cowboy bar, Uyghur street food and then in a shabby basement apartment. Skinner is a reprieve from Aishe’s life working in brutal restaurant kitchens for under-the-table wages; Aishe is a grounding force for Skinner, grieving the loss of his best friend and managing his PTSD symptoms with a cocktail of meds and plenty of booze. They are both utterly alone in the world until they have each other.

Liu transports us into this small but affecting love story with stunning, saturated, fluid cinematography by Ante Cheng and a swooning score by Emile Mosseri. The filmmaker deploys this lush aesthetic to make us fall in love with Aishe and Skinner’s impossible, head-over-heels romance.

He weaves in Aishe’s childhood memories of her father, with her Uyghur language narration addressed to him, as she asks imploring questions of a man who will never be able to answer. Skinner’s military background inspires her own physical training, jogging miles and lifting weights. She’s always seeking her father, not just in Skinner the soldier but in herself too, the remnants of his presence thrumming through her memory.

Ambitious, driven and desperate to change her station in life, Aishe contemplates marriage, hoping for a path to legal status, though the only free advice she can get from an immigration lawyer is to be careful about whom she marries. She heeds this warning, starting to realize that this boyfriend might not bring her freedom but deadweight, as much as she tries to help him help himself. The scenario is high stakes given both Aishe’s status (she’s at one point arrested and detained) and Skinner’s mental health struggles, but this is a classic tale of a first love that curdles from sweet to sour.

The compelling performances and Liu’s artful direction elevate the script. Behtiyar, in her debut feature, is spectacular, eyes fiery, her expression often inscrutable, body in constant motion as Cheng’s camera follows close behind. Her connection with Hechinger is palpable, heady and heated, despite their characters’ differences, and it’s nice to see Hechinger in a more adult, romantic role, even as Skinner falls prey to his own demons.

Liu does indulge in the prolonging of heartache and indecision, and the story stalls while heading into the third act, the film stretched beyond what the material can sustain. Nevertheless, “Preparation for the Next Life” is a powerful assertion of dreams, humanity and hard work, arguing that every person has a past, a future and a story to tell. Some loves are for a lifetime, others just a moment, but nothing’s stopping Aishe from what she wants in this life — or her next.

Katie Walsh is a Tribune News Service film critic.

Former England bowler Stuart Broad will work with South Africa in the build-up to the World Test Championship final against Australia later this month.

Broad, 38, will work for one day as a consultant at training on 9 June – his first role in coaching since retiring at the end of the 2023 Ashes.

Broad took 604 wickets in 167 Tests, putting him second on England’s all-time list behind long-time team-mate James Anderson.

He took 153 of those wickets against Australia – the most by any player in Test history.

Since retiring he has worked as a TV pundit but will help South Africa prepare for the World Test Championship final begins at Lord’s on 11 June.

The Proteas begin a warm-up match against Zimbabwe at Arundel Castle Cricket Ground in Sussex on Tuesday.

Australia are defending champions, having beaten India at The Oval in 2023.