Stock Alert: General Mills Still In Demand

(RTTNews) - Branded consumer foods and pet food maker General Mills, Inc. (GIS) is seeing a surge in the share price during Covid-19.

Monday it touched a new high of $61.66, nearly 30% increase in a month, while on Tuesday, it edged down $0.98 or 1.61% before closing at $59.78.

During lockdown, panic buying and stockpiling lead to more sales for the company's wide variety of packaged foods, including ready-to-eat cereals, refrigerated yogurt, soup, meal kits and nutrition bars.

Last month, while reporting third-quarter results, the company had raised its full-year view citing increased demand for its packaged foods. Constant currency adjusted earnings per share are expected to increase 6% to 8% from $3.22 reported last year, versus the previous range of 3% to 5% growth, General Mills said.

Although this short-term demand for canned food due to coronavirus imposed lockdown is expected to decline in the coming months, the company sees overall at-home food demand to remain high during the fourth quarter.

Organic net sales are expected to grow significantly in the fourth-quarter, driven by improved performance in North America Retail.

Since General Mills does not have any considerable supply chain disruption during Covid-19 pandemic, it is able to deliver to increased customer demand, the company said in its third-quarter conference call.

In the third quarter, sales were $4.2 billion, flat with last year. Earnings of $0.77 beat average estimate of 15 analysts polled by Thomson Reuters at $0.76.