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

General Mills (GIS) closed at $40.48 in the latest trading session, marking a +1.66% move from the prior day. The stock outpaced the S&P 500's daily gain of 0.7%. At the same time, the Dow added 0.42%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq gained 1.26%.

Prior to today's trading, shares of the maker of Cheerios cereal, Yoplait yogurt and other packaged foods had gained 0.23% over the past month. This has outpaced the Consumer Staples sector's loss of 5.54% and the S&P 500's loss of 6.13% in that time.

GIS will be looking to display strength as it nears its next earnings release, which is expected to be March 20, 2019. On that day, GIS is projected to report earnings of $0.69 per share, which would represent a year-over-year decline of 12.66%. Our most recent consensus estimate is calling for quarterly revenue of $4.18 billion, up 7.7% from the year-ago period.

For the full year, our Zacks Consensus Estimates are projecting earnings of $3.08 per share and revenue of $16.95 billion, which would represent changes of -0.96% and +7.66%, respectively, from the prior year.

Investors should also note any recent changes to analyst estimates for GIS. 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. 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.

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 has moved 0.18% higher. GIS is currently sporting a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold).

Valuation is also important, so investors should note that GIS has a Forward P/E ratio of 12.94 right now. Its industry sports an average Forward P/E of 16.08, so we one might conclude that GIS is trading at a discount comparatively.

Meanwhile, GIS's PEG ratio is currently 1.78. 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. Food - Miscellaneous stocks are, on average, holding a PEG ratio of 1.94 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 161, putting it in the bottom 37% 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.

To follow GIS in the coming trading sessions, be sure to utilize Zacks.com.

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