General Mills (GIS) Shares Climb 3.6% On Earnings Growth

Shares of General Mills, Inc. (NYSE: GIS) are currently up more than 3.6% at $36.97 per share during Wednesday afternoon trading. Today's trading range for shares of General Mills, Inc has been between $35.97 and $37.14 per share. The consensus price target of analysts covering the stock of the Minneapolis, Minnesota based producer of consumer foods is $40.30 per share.

General Mills, Inc. (GIS) announced earlier today that its fiscal 1st quarter net earnings rose 12.2% to $472.1 million, or 70 cents per share, up from $420.6 million, or 62 cents per share, a year earlier.

Adjusted earnings came in at 64 cents per share, which was just above the average Wall Street estimate of 63 cents per share.

General Mills' revenue rose just 1.5% to $3.53 billion, up from $3.48 billion a year earlier.

The company maintained its full-year fiscal 2011 earnings guidance of $2.46 to $2.48 per share.

Chairman and chief executive officer Ken Powell said, “We're pleased to see continued growth in volume and net sales across our worldwide businesses. Consumer demand for our established brands remains strong, and new products are making good contributions to our sales results. This top line resilience, coupled with our continuing focus on holistic margin management (HMM), has us off to a solid start in 2011.”

Volume of 6.3 million shares is well above the daily average volume of 5.7 million shares.

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