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General Mills (GIS) Gains But Lags Market: What You Should Know

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General Mills (GIS - Free Report) closed at $68.43 in the latest trading session, marking a +0.43% move from the prior day. This move lagged the S&P 500's daily gain of 0.84%. Elsewhere, the Dow gained 1.06%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq added 0.1%.

Prior to today's trading, shares of the maker of Cheerios cereal, Yoplait yogurt and other packaged foods had lost 0.92% over the past month. This has was narrower than the Consumer Staples sector's loss of 1.73% and the S&P 500's loss of 4.03% in that time.

Investors will be hoping for strength from General Mills as it approaches its next earnings release. The company is expected to report EPS of $0.83, up 1.22% from the prior-year quarter. Meanwhile, our latest consensus estimate is calling for revenue of $4.6 billion, up 1.66% from the prior-year quarter.

Looking at the full year, our Zacks Consensus Estimates suggest analysts are expecting earnings of $3.78 per share and revenue of $18.78 billion. These totals would mark changes of -0.26% and +3.58%, respectively, from last year.

Investors might also notice recent changes to analyst estimates for General Mills. 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.

Research indicates that these estimate revisions are directly correlated with near-term share price momentum. Investors can capitalize on this by using the Zacks Rank. This model considers these estimate changes and provides a simple, actionable rating system.

Ranging from #1 (Strong Buy) to #5 (Strong Sell), the Zacks Rank system has a proven, outside-audited track record of outperformance, with #1 stocks returning an average of +25% annually since 1988. Within the past 30 days, our consensus EPS projection remained stagnant. General Mills currently has a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold).

Digging into valuation, General Mills currently has a Forward P/E ratio of 18.05. For comparison, its industry has an average Forward P/E of 18.05, which means General Mills is trading at a no noticeable deviation to the group.

It is also worth noting that GIS currently has a PEG ratio of 2.41. This popular metric is similar to the widely-known P/E ratio, with the difference being that the PEG ratio also takes into account the company's expected earnings growth rate. Food - Miscellaneous stocks are, on average, holding a PEG ratio of 3.14 based on yesterday's closing prices.

The Food - Miscellaneous industry is part of the Consumer Staples sector. This group has a Zacks Industry Rank of 230, putting it in the bottom 10% of all 250+ industries.

The Zacks Industry Rank includes is listed in order from best to worst in terms of the average Zacks Rank of the individual companies within each of these sectors. 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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