Brokerages Set General Mills, Inc. (NYSE:GIS) Price Target at $70.94

Shares of General Mills, Inc. (NYSE:GIS) have received a consensus rating of “Hold” from the seventeen ratings firms that are covering the stock, MarketBeat Ratings reports. One analyst has rated the stock with a sell rating, twelve have given a hold rating and four have given a buy rating to the company. The average 12-month target price among analysts that have issued a report on the stock in the last year is $71.13.

Several research firms have issued reports on GIS. TD Cowen dropped their target price on General Mills from $75.00 to $64.00 and set a “hold” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, December 19th. Citigroup dropped their target price on General Mills from $71.00 to $67.00 and set a “neutral” rating on the stock in a research report on Thursday, December 19th. Bank of America upgraded General Mills from a “neutral” rating to a “buy” rating and boosted their target price for the stock from $78.00 to $80.00 in a research report on Friday, December 13th. Stifel Nicolaus dropped their target price on General Mills from $78.00 to $72.00 and set a “buy” rating on the stock in a research report on Friday, January 24th. Finally, Wells Fargo & Company dropped their target price on General Mills from $68.00 to $64.00 and set an “equal weight” rating on the stock in a research report on Tuesday, January 7th.

General Mills Stock Performance

Shares of GIS stock opened at $59.60 on Friday. The stock has a market capitalization of $32.86 billion, a PE ratio of 12.96, a price-to-earnings-growth ratio of 3.82 and a beta of 0.10. General Mills has a 52-week low of $57.85 and a 52-week high of $75.90. The stock’s 50-day moving average price is $61.85 and its 200 day moving average price is $66.99. The company has a quick ratio of 0.67, a current ratio of 0.92 and a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.32.

General Mills (NYSE:GIS) last issued its quarterly earnings results on Wednesday, December 18th. The company reported $1.40 earnings per share (EPS) for the quarter, beating the consensus estimate of $1.22 by $0.18. The firm had revenue of $5.24 billion for the quarter, compared to analysts’ expectations of $5.14 billion. General Mills had a return on equity of 27.55% and a net margin of 13.08%. The firm’s revenue for the quarter was up 2.7% on a year-over-year basis. During the same quarter in the previous year, the firm posted $1.25 EPS. As a group, equities research analysts forecast that General Mills will post 4.4 EPS for the current year.

General Mills Dividend Announcement

The business also recently announced a quarterly dividend, which will be paid on Thursday, May 1st. Investors of record on Thursday, April 10th will be paid a $0.60 dividend. This represents a $2.40 dividend on an annualized basis and a yield of 4.03%. The ex-dividend date is Thursday, April 10th. General Mills’s payout ratio is currently 52.17%.

Insider Activity at General Mills

In other General Mills news, insider Paul Joseph Gallagher sold 1,041 shares of the stock in a transaction on Friday, December 20th. The stock was sold at an average price of $64.50, for a total transaction of $67,144.50. Following the transaction, the insider now owns 42,117 shares of the company’s stock, valued at $2,716,546.50. This represents a 2.41 % decrease in their position. The sale was disclosed in a document filed with the SEC, which is available through this link. 0.26% of the stock is owned by corporate insiders.

Institutional Inflows and Outflows

A number of large investors have recently made changes to their positions in GIS. Vanguard Group Inc. raised its position in shares of General Mills by 2.8% in the 4th quarter. Vanguard Group Inc. now owns 68,630,598 shares of the company’s stock worth $4,376,573,000 after buying an additional 1,868,508 shares during the period. State Street Corp grew its stake in shares of General Mills by 9.4% during the third quarter. State Street Corp now owns 33,502,737 shares of the company’s stock valued at $2,474,177,000 after acquiring an additional 2,867,678 shares in the last quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC grew its stake in shares of General Mills by 1.0% during the fourth quarter. Geode Capital Management LLC now owns 14,488,451 shares of the company’s stock valued at $923,907,000 after acquiring an additional 136,895 shares in the last quarter. Nordea Investment Management AB grew its stake in shares of General Mills by 64.5% during the fourth quarter. Nordea Investment Management AB now owns 7,803,046 shares of the company’s stock valued at $497,054,000 after acquiring an additional 3,058,414 shares in the last quarter. Finally, Norges Bank acquired a new stake in shares of General Mills during the fourth quarter valued at about $496,484,000. Hedge funds and other institutional investors own 75.71% of the company’s stock.

General Mills Company Profile

General Mills, Inc manufactures and markets branded consumer foods worldwide. The company operates through four segments: North America Retail; International; Pet; and North America Foodservice. It offers grain, ready-to-eat cereals, refrigerated yogurt, soup, meal kits, refrigerated and frozen dough products, dessert and baking mixes, bakery flour, frozen pizza and pizza snacks, snack bars, fruit and savory snacks, ice cream and frozen desserts, unbaked and fully baked frozen dough products, frozen hot snacks, ethnic meals, side dish mixes, frozen breakfast and entrees, nutrition bars, and frozen and shelf-stable vegetables.