What Do Wall Street Analysts Think of General Mills?

By Kim Brooks • Saturday, February 15 15:06 • Permanent Link

Tumbling to a price of $58.84 during today's afternoon trading session, shares of General Mills are now -15.85% below their average target price of $69.92. Does this mean the stock will reverse course? Analysts are giving GIS an average rating of hold and target prices ranging from 62.0 to 84.0 dollars per share.

It seems the market sentiment regarding General Mills is mostly optimistic, since it has a short interest of only 4.6%. This is the percentage of the share float that is being shorted by investors who are hoping the stock's price will decrease in the future.

Short selling involves borrowing shares and then selling them at current market prices. In the successful version of the strategy, the shares are purchased at a lower price at some time in the future. The investor then returns the shares to the lender, and keeps the profit made on the sell/buy transaction.

One way to get an idea of the market sentiment on a stock is to check its rate of institutional ownership. In the case of General Mills, institutional investors own 83.1% of the shares, which indicates they have a very high stake in the company. What does this really tell us?

Institutional investors such as hedge funds, investment firms, and wealth managers devote significant resources to identifying good investments. If they have decided to invest in GIS, it probably means they believe it is a solid investment choice.

But it could also mean they are buying up shares in an effort to acquire the company or to get seats on the board of directors. Also bear in mind that institutions are fallible (just maybe not quite as fallible as the average retail investor), so they may simply be wrong when they think they've found a good stock.

Overall, there is mixed market sentiment towards General Mills because of an analyst consensus of some upside potential, a hold rating, an average amount of shares sold short, and a significant number of institutional investors. Investors should not base their decisions on market sentiment only, they should also be aware of a stock's fundamentals before committing.

At a glance, here are some essential statistics you may want to know about GIS:

It has trailing 12 month earnings per share (EPS) of $4.6 per share
General Mills has a trailing 12 month Price to Earnings (P/E) ratio of 12.8 while the S&P 500 average is 29.3
The company has a Price to Book (P/B) ratio of 3.53 in contrast to the S&P 500's average ratio of 4.74
General Mills is a Consumer Staples company, and the sector average P/E and P/B ratios are 23.09 and 3.3 respectively

The above analysis is intended for educational purposes only and was performed on the basis of publicly available data. It is not to be construed as a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Any buy, sell, or other recommendations mentioned in the article are direct quotations of consensus recommendations from the analysts covering the stock, and do not represent the opinions of Market Inference or its writers. Past performance, accounting data, and inferences about market position and corporate valuation are not reliable indicators of future price movements. Market Inference does not provide financial advice. Investors should conduct their own review and analysis of any company of interest before making an investment decision.