General Mills is catching up

A stock that has been lagging the market but seems to finally be catching up is General Mills (GIS).  It came to my notice while screening on Barchart for stocks hitting the most frequent new highs in the last month.  All though cereal sales have been down recently a new pricing scheme by all the cereal makers is expected to fall to the bottom line.  GIS has been having difficulty with a distribution agreement for Yoplait but it look like the dispute is about to be settled with a purchase of the company.

General Mills, Inc. (GIS) is one of the leading producers of packaged consumer foods and markets its products primarily through its own sales organizations, supported by advertising and other promotional activities. Such products are primarily distributed directly to retail food chains, cooperatives, membership stores and wholesalers.

Technical Factors:

• 96% Barchart technical buy signal
• Trend Spotter buy signal
• 17 new highs and up 8.79% in the last month
• Relative Strength Index 79.30% and rising
• Trades around 39.28 with a 50 day moving average of 36.89

Fundamental Factors:

• A widely followed stock on Wall Street with over 20 report issued
• Brokerage analysts have released 5 strong buy, 11 buy, 5 hold and no negative recommendations on this stock
• Sales consensus is an increase of .9% this year and 3.80% next year
• Earnings are projected to increase by 7.80% this year, 8.10% next year and continue increasing by 7.57 annually for the next 5 years

General Investor Sentiment:

• Very popular stock as measured on Motley Fool with over 1,358 readers expressing opinions
• CAPS members vote 985 to 59 that the stock will beat the market
• The more experienced All Stars agree with a vote of 300 to 14

Summary:  General Mills (GIS) is a household name with competitively priced products, proven business skills and has price momentum.  Popular with both Wall Street and the investing public it deserves a place on your watch lists

Jim Van Meerten is an analyst for  Marketocracy Capital Management.  He shares his knowledge and experience from over 40 years of investing in stocks, mutual funds and ETFs on  Barchart.com  in his daily blog -- Barchart Portfolio Blogs.