The Vanguard Group, Inc. recently announced the acquisition of new stake in General Mills Inc. (NYSE:GIS). The institutional investor has increased its shareholding in the Consumer Defensive company by 0.73% to 49.48 million shares with purchase of 0.36 million shares. This fresh investment now brings its stake to 8.39% valued currently at $3.93 billion. In addition, BlackRock Fund Advisors raised its holdings by 3.27 million to 37.82 million shares. And SSgA Funds Management, Inc. has lifted its position by 0.44% or 0.15 million shares – to 33.89 million shares.
With over 2.98 million General Mills Inc. (GIS) shares trading Tuesday and a closing price of $80.16 on the day, the dollar volume was approximately $239.12 million. The shares have shown a positive half year performance of 5.27% and its price on 03/14/23 gained nearly 0.46%. Currently, there are 595.90M common shares owned by the public and among those 584.30M shares have been available to trade.
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An analysis of what Wall Street brokers have to say about the expected price targets for this stock gives us this picture: 22 analysts who have offered their price forecasts for GIS have a consensus price objective of $81.53. The analysts have set the share’s price value over the next 12 months at a high of $95.00 and a low of $65.00. The average price target is 1.68% above its recent price level and a downside to the estimated low will see the stock lose -23.32% over that period. But an upside of 15.62% will see the stock hit the forecast high price target while median target price for the stock is $84.00.
Insiders at the company have transacted a total of 133 times over the past 12 months, according to data filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). 69 of these insider trades were purchases, accounting for 785,262 shares. Insider sales of the common stock occurred on 64 occasions, with total insider shares sold totaling 602,544 shares.
The top 3 mutual fund holders in General Mills Inc. are Vanguard Total Stock Market Index, American Mutual Fund, and Vanguard 500 Index Fund. Vanguard Total Stock Market Index owns 18.19 million shares of the company’s stock, all valued at over $1.45 billion. The company bought an additional 0.15 million shares recently to bring their total holdings to about 3.09% of the shares outstanding. Vanguard 500 Index Fund bought 32574.0 shares to bring its total holdings to over 13.75 million shares at a value of $1.09 billion. Vanguard 500 Index Fund now owns shares totaling to 2.33% of the shares outstanding.
Shares of General Mills Inc. (NYSE: GIS) opened at $79.85, up $0.06 from a prior closing price of $79.79. However, the script later moved the day high at 80.23, up 0.46%. The company’s stock has a 5-day price change of 1.42% and -6.62% over the past three months. GIS shares are trading -4.40% year to date (YTD), with the 12-month market performance up to 28.73% higher. It has a 12-month low price of $61.67 and touched a high of $88.34 over the same period. GIS has an average intraday trading volume of 3.57 million shares. The stock is trading above its simple moving averages at the SMA20, SMA50, and SMA200, as the current price level is off by 1.95%, 1.10%, and 3.21% respectively.
Institutional ownership of General Mills Inc. (NYSE: GIS) shares accounts for 78.10% of the company’s 595.90M shares outstanding. Mutual fund holders own 42.67%, while other institutional holders and individual stakeholders account for 5.46% and 36.75% respectively.
It has a market capitalization of $47.34B and a beta (3y monthly) value of 0.24. The stock’s trailing 12-month PE ratio is 16.75, while the earnings-per-share (ttm) stands at $4.79. The company has a PEG of 2.53 and a Quick Ratio of 0.30 with the debt-to-equity ratio at 1.16. Price movements for the stock have been influenced by the stock’s volatility, which stands at 1.80% over the week and 1.66% over the month.
Analysts forecast that General Mills Inc. (GIS) will achieve an EPS of $0.9 for the current quarter, $1.03 for the next quarter and $4.35 for 2024. The lowest estimate earnings-per-share for the quarter is $0.84 while analysts give the company a high EPS estimate of $0.96. Comparatively, EPS for the current quarter was $0.84 a year ago. Earnings per share for the fiscal year are expected to increase by 16.90%, and 5.17% over the next financial year. EPS should shrink at an annualized rate of 6.61% over the next five years, compared to 9.80% over the past 5-year period.
If you are looking to buy this stock, then you may note that the average analyst recommendation by 22 brokerage firm advisors rate General Mills Inc. (GIS) as a “Hold” at a consensus score of 3.10. Specifically, 3 Wall Street analysts polled rate the stock as a buy, while 13 of the 22 advise that investors “hold,” and 2 rated it as a “Sell.”
Looking at the support for the GIS, a number of firms have released research notes about the stock. Mizuho stated their Neutral rating for the stock in a research note on February 01, 2023, with the firm’s price target at $75. UBS coverage for the General Mills Inc. (GIS) stock in a research note released on January 27, 2023 offered a Buy rating with a price target of $88. Wells Fargo was of a view on January 03, 2023 that the stock is Equal Weight, while Deutsche Bank gave the stock Hold rating on December 06, 2022, issuing a price target of $88. Exane BNP Paribas on their part issued Outperform rating on November 15, 2022.
