Why Altria Group, Western Digital, and Goodyear Tire & Rubber Slumped Today

Friday was a mixed day on Wall Street, with major benchmarks posting small moves in either direction to finish out the week. Some market participants pointed to the defeat of the proposed repeal of the Affordable Care Act in the Senate as weighing on sentiment even in the face of economic data showing solid gains in the second quarter of 2017, but earnings season also created substantial volatility among individual stocks. Several well-known companies reported bad news either in their quarterly reports or in other areas of their respective businesses, and Altria Group (NYSE: MO), Western Digital (NASDAQ: WDC), and Goodyear Tire & Rubber (NASDAQ: GT) were among the worst performers on the day. Below, we'll look more closely at these stocks to tell you why they did so poorly.

Shares of Altria Group fell 9.5% after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced a new initiative to regulate cigarettes more heavily. The FDA said that it would like to see tobacco companies take steps to reduce the amount of nicotine that is present in traditional cigarettes, with the goal of taking the level down below the threshold for smokers to become addicted. The regulatory agency said that curbing addiction should lead to millions of lives saved over time. As it has done with past FDA efforts, Altria responded the proposal with carefully crafted comments, characterizing the FDA announcement as "an important evolution in the [FDA's] approach to regulating tobacco products and a meaningful step forward in developing a comprehensive regulatory policy that acknowledges the continuum of risk." Shareholders weren't nearly as calm, and stocks across the industry shuddered at the regulatory move.

Image source: Altria Group.

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Source: Fool.com