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

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In the latest trading session, General Mills (GIS - Free Report) closed at $53.48, marking a +0.3% move from the previous day. This move outpaced the S&P 500's daily loss of 0.86%. At the same time, the Dow lost 0.96%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq lost 1.13%.

Prior to today's trading, shares of the maker of Cheerios cereal, Yoplait yogurt and other packaged foods had gained 4.84% over the past month. This has outpaced the Consumer Staples sector's gain of 1.93% and the S&P 500's gain of 3.66% in that time.

Wall Street will be looking for positivity from GIS as it approaches its next earnings report date. This is expected to be December 18, 2019. In that report, analysts expect GIS to post earnings of $0.89 per share. This would mark year-over-year growth of 4.71%. Meanwhile, our latest consensus estimate is calling for revenue of $4.43 billion, up 0.46% from the prior-year quarter.

For the full year, our Zacks Consensus Estimates are projecting earnings of $3.37 per share and revenue of $17.31 billion, which would represent changes of +4.66% and +2.64%, respectively, from the prior year.

It is also important to note the recent changes to analyst estimates for GIS. These revisions help to show the ever-changing nature of near-term business trends. As a result, we can interpret positive estimate revisions as a good sign for 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.

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. The Zacks Consensus EPS estimate has moved 0.25% higher within the past month. 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 15.81. Its industry sports an average Forward P/E of 18.5, so we one might conclude that GIS is trading at a discount comparatively.

Meanwhile, GIS's PEG ratio is currently 2.26. 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 2.41 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 149, which puts it in the bottom 42% 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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