The accursed ESG-investing obsession ..... ?, with tobacco stocks falling short of the mark.
While it's anyone's guess on markets, I highly doubt this has anything to do with ESG. In fact, I don't think that there is any serious money in the market that really cares about ESG at all. That's just another in a long line of marketing buzzwords, largely pushed by media and non-profits, which becomes irrelevant when real revenues and profits are on the line.
Instead what seems to have happened today is another day with higher fears about COVID, with both the US and EU now showing high case rates and facing more possible lockdowns. So the conventional trading wisdom kicks in as "sell everything except large tech companies", because it is assumed they benefit during lockdowns, and nearly everything else will suffer.
The conventional wisdom has some underlying sense, as tech products and services are used more when people work/school from home. And companies like PM likely will suffer some additional lost revenue and profits if stay at home orders are issued in significant areas like the EU.
So that trading pattern so far has worked. But the problem is that it has created a sizable tech bubble, which will not last forever. Most of those large tech companies are already trading at 30-40 times earnings. There is no way they are going to be able to triple or even quadruple earnings from current levels, which would be necessary just to get back to PE's where PM and MO currently trade. And I definitely would not want to be holding them when the air comes out of the bubble.