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

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General Mills (GIS - Free Report) closed at $89.85 in the latest trading session, marking a -0.45% move from the prior day. This move lagged the S&P 500's daily gain of 1.19%. Meanwhile, the Dow gained 1.24%, and the Nasdaq, a tech-heavy index, added 8.36%.

Heading into today, shares of the maker of Cheerios cereal, Yoplait yogurt and other packaged foods had gained 3.18% over the past month, outpacing the Consumer Staples sector's gain of 0.67% and the S&P 500's loss of 0.54% 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 $1.05, down 6.25% from the prior-year quarter. Meanwhile, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenue is projecting net sales of $5.13 billion, up 4.94% from the year-ago period.

For the full year, our Zacks Consensus Estimates are projecting earnings of $4.23 per share and revenue of $20.2 billion, which would represent changes of +7.36% and +6.34%, respectively, from the prior year.

Investors should also note any recent changes to analyst estimates for General Mills. These revisions help to show the ever-changing nature of 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 is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #2 (Buy).

Investors should also note General Mills's current valuation metrics, including its Forward P/E ratio of 21.32. This represents a premium compared to its industry's average Forward P/E of 18.33.

We can also see that GIS currently has a PEG ratio of 2.84. 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. The Food - Miscellaneous industry currently had an average PEG ratio of 2.94 as of yesterday's close.

The Food - Miscellaneous industry is part of the Consumer Staples sector. This industry currently has a Zacks Industry Rank of 55, which puts it in the top 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.

Be sure to follow all of these stock-moving metrics, and many more, on Zacks.com.


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