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General Mills (GIS) Outpaces Stock Market Gains: What You Should Know

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General Mills (GIS - Free Report) closed at $63.14 in the latest trading session, marking a +0.81% move from the prior day. This move outpaced the S&P 500's daily gain of 0.65%.

Coming into today, shares of the maker of Cheerios cereal, Yoplait yogurt and other packaged foods had gained 1.77% in the past month. In that same time, the Consumer Staples sector gained 2.8%, while the S&P 500 gained 6.38%.

Investors will be hoping for strength from GIS as it approaches its next earnings release. On that day, GIS is projected to report earnings of $1.05 per share, which would represent a year-over-year decline of 0.94%. Meanwhile, our latest consensus estimate is calling for revenue of $4.8 billion, up 1.76% from the prior-year quarter.

GIS's full-year Zacks Consensus Estimates are calling for earnings of $3.80 per share and revenue of $18.25 billion. These results would represent year-over-year changes of +0.26% and +0.67%, respectively.

Any recent changes to analyst estimates for GIS should also be noted by investors. Recent revisions tend to reflect the latest near-term business trends. With this in mind, we can consider positive estimate revisions a sign of optimism about the company's business outlook.

Our research shows that these estimate changes are directly correlated with near-term stock prices. Investors can capitalize on this by using the Zacks Rank. This model considers these estimate changes and provides a simple, actionable rating system.

The Zacks Rank system, which ranges from #1 (Strong Buy) to #5 (Strong Sell), has an impressive outside-audited track record of outperformance, with #1 stocks generating an average annual return of +25% since 1988. The Zacks Consensus EPS estimate remained stagnant within the past month. GIS is currently a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).

Digging into valuation, GIS currently has a Forward P/E ratio of 16.49. Its industry sports an average Forward P/E of 20.48, so we one might conclude that GIS is trading at a discount comparatively.

Also, we should mention that GIS has a PEG ratio of 2.2. The PEG ratio is similar to the widely-used P/E ratio, but this metric also takes the company's expected earnings growth rate into account. Food - Miscellaneous stocks are, on average, holding a PEG ratio of 2.59 based on yesterday's closing prices.

The Food - Miscellaneous industry is part of the Consumer Staples sector. This industry currently has a Zacks Industry Rank of 200, which puts it in the bottom 22% of all 250+ industries.

The Zacks Industry Rank gauges the strength of our individual industry groups by measuring the average Zacks Rank of the individual stocks within the groups. Our research shows that the top 50% rated industries outperform the bottom half by a factor of 2 to 1.

Make sure to utilize Zacks. Com to follow all of these stock-moving metrics, and more, in the coming trading sessions.


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