But investors who held or bought Philip Morris may better understand the long-term picture.
Regulation benefits the market leader in any industry because it stifles competition.
Flexible big companies often use regulation to further their own interests. Most importantly for Bible's company and its 154,000 employees, regulation could lead to work that would reduce the moral stain that haunts Philip Morris and other tobacco firms. That stain is not really for producing cigarettes. They are legal products, and governments eagerly collect taxes on cigarettes. The moral question lies in the fact that Philip Morris and others have never turned their best efforts to producing a less-hazardous cigarette.