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

In the latest trading session, General Mills (GIS) closed at $53.24, marking a +0.15% move from the previous day. This move outpaced the S&P 500's daily loss of 0.11%. Meanwhile, the Dow lost 0.1%, and the Nasdaq, a tech-heavy index, lost 0.07%.

Prior to today's trading, shares of the maker of Cheerios cereal, Yoplait yogurt and other packaged foods had gained 1.53% over the past month. This has lagged the Consumer Staples sector's gain of 3.07% and the S&P 500's gain of 1.62% in that time.

Investors will be hoping for strength from GIS as it approaches its next earnings release, which 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%. Our most recent consensus estimate is calling for quarterly revenue of $4.41 billion, down 0.09% from the year-ago period.

GIS's full-year Zacks Consensus Estimates are calling for earnings of $3.37 per share and revenue of $17.25 billion. These results would represent year-over-year changes of +4.66% and +2.31%, respectively.

Investors should also note any recent changes to analyst estimates for GIS. These recent revisions tend to reflect the evolving nature of short-term business trends. As a result, we can interpret positive estimate revisions as a good sign for the company's business outlook.

Based on our research, we believe these estimate revisions are directly related to near-team stock moves. We developed the Zacks Rank to capitalize on this phenomenon. Our system takes these estimate changes into account and delivers a clear, actionable rating model.

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. Over the past month, the Zacks Consensus EPS estimate has moved 0.25% higher. GIS is currently a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).

Looking at its valuation, GIS is holding a Forward P/E ratio of 15.77. Its industry sports an average Forward P/E of 19.03, so we one might conclude that GIS is trading at a discount comparatively.

We can also see that GIS currently has a PEG ratio of 2.25. 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 2.48 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 97, which puts it in the top 39% of all 250+ industries.

The Zacks Industry Rank gauges the strength of our 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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