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

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In the latest trading session, General Mills (GIS - Free Report) closed at $64.37, marking a -0.26% move from the previous day. This change lagged the S&P 500's daily gain of 1.24%. At the same time, the Dow added 0.61%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq gained 1.35%.

Prior to today's trading, shares of the maker of Cheerios cereal, Yoplait yogurt and other packaged foods had gained 4.69% over the past month. This has lagged the Consumer Staples sector's gain of 9.08% and the S&P 500's gain of 7.09% in that time.

Wall Street will be looking for positivity from GIS as it approaches its next earnings report date. In that report, analysts expect GIS to post earnings of $0.87 per share. This would mark year-over-year growth of 10.13%. Our most recent consensus estimate is calling for quarterly revenue of $4.15 billion, up 3.76% from the year-ago period.

GIS's full-year Zacks Consensus Estimates are calling for earnings of $3.52 per share and revenue of $17.12 billion. These results would represent year-over-year changes of -2.49% and -2.85%, respectively.

Any recent changes to analyst estimates for GIS should also be noted by investors. These revisions help to show the ever-changing nature of near-term business trends. As such, positive estimate revisions reflect analyst optimism about the company's business and profitability.

Based on our research, we believe these estimate revisions are directly related to near-team stock moves. 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. Over the past month, the Zacks Consensus EPS estimate has moved 0.53% higher. GIS currently has a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold).

Investors should also note GIS's current valuation metrics, including its Forward P/E ratio of 18.32. This valuation marks a discount compared to its industry's average Forward P/E of 18.44.

We can also see that GIS currently has a PEG ratio of 2.44. This metric is used similarly to the famous P/E ratio, but the PEG ratio also takes into account the stock's expected earnings growth rate. The Food - Miscellaneous industry currently had an average PEG ratio of 4.02 as of yesterday's close.

The Food - Miscellaneous industry is part of the Consumer Staples sector. This group has a Zacks Industry Rank of 112, putting it in the top 45% 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.

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


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