Tobacco companies offer some of the best investment opportunities in the sin sector. Generally tobacco, gambling, liquor companies are considered as part of the sin sector. In good times and bad times, people patronize these firms and their products. So its a win-win situation for investors as this industry turns from consumer discretionary to a consumer staples-type industry.

Tobacco stocks have high dividend yields and these stocks have been great performers over the short-term and long-term. Despite legal woes and other issues with the industry, tobacco firms have been consistently able to make solid profits and deliver excellent returns to shareholders. I wrote a review of the global tobacco industry back in 2010. Some of my other articles on tobacco can be found here and here.

A  recent research note by Pensions & Investments magazine noted that US tobacco firms have outperformed the S&P 500 over the past 20 years in terms of annualized total return.

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From the article:

Over the 20-year period ended Dec. 31, U.S. tobacco companies returned an annualized 15.31% vs. 8.09% for the S&P 500 index. The majority of outperformance was driven by the high-dividend yields of tobacco companies.

Some of the major US tobacco firms are Altria Group Inc.(MO), Lorillard, Inc.(LO) and Reynolds American Inc.(RAI). The complete list of  tobacco stocks on the NYSE can be found here.

Among the foreign firms, British-based Imperial Brands PLC (ITYBY) and British American Tobacco p.l.c. (BTI) are good options.

Update (5/1/16):

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Source: WSJ

Disclosure: No Positions

Update: *** Go to The Number of Listed Companies by Country 2016 ***

The number of publicly listed companies vary widely between countries. Generally the total number of listed companies are higher in the developed world than the emerging and frontier markets. However certain emerging markets such as India, China, Brazil has relatively high number of public companies listed. The following chart shows the number of listed companies by country at the end of December, 2015:

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Notes:

Data shown above is only member exchanges of the WFE

Only stocks listed on major exchanges of countries are included. That is, for China data is from the Shanghai Stock Exchange and does not include the Shenzhen Exchange. Similarly for India, data is from the Bombay Stock Exchange and excludes National Stock Exchange.

Nasdaq OMX Nordic Exchange* – This exchange is the market for Scandinavian countries

Euronext* * – This exchanges companies listed on many European countries such as France, Belgium, The Netherlands, etc.

Data Source: World Federation of Exchanges (WFE)

A few observations:

• With 5,836 firms, India’s Bombay Stock Exchange has the highest number of companies listed even beating the US.
• The U.S. has the second highest listings with 5,283 firms in both the NYSE and NASDAQ.
• Among the BRICs, Russia has the lowest number of listings.
• Frontier markets such as Dubai, Slovenia, Kazakhstan, etc. have less than 100 companies listed on the exchanges.
• Though the number of companies are high in countries like India and China, the total market capitalization of these companies are relatively smaller compared to the exchanges in the developed world.
• Of the Middle Eastern countries, Israel tops the rank with 461 companies listed.
• Due to a larger and vibrant economy, South Africa has more than double the number of listed firms than Nigeria.

Download (in Excel format):

The full WFE Report on listings, market caps, etc. The report has a wealth of info in addition to the number of listed companies.

Related:

• Stock Exchanges of the World and the Number of Listed Companies, TFS, December 2008