General Mills, Inc. Sees Revenue Growth Go Stale

General Mills reported fiscal-second-quarter results this morning and the figures were a little stale. Growth was non-existent with sales of $4.88 billion falling slightly from a year ago. And net income was up a paltry 1.5% in the quarter to $549.9 million, or $0.84 per share.

Results missed Wall Street's expectations, most notably $0.05 short of earnings per share targets. Missing expectations can often cause a stock to plunge but shares are only trading slightly lower today, which is in part due to guidance.

Management was confident that higher costs and a rough foreign exchange translation will be short-term headwinds and said full-year guidance would remain at $2.87 to $2.90 per share. That's at the bottom end of expectations, so there's little wiggle room to miss results in the third quarter.

This is really a stable business, but it's clearly not in growth mode anymore. Any more than low single-digit growth would be outstanding for General Mills and while this quarter was even worse than that, I don't think it's reason for investors to panic.

The article General Mills, Inc. Sees Revenue Growth Go Stale originally appeared on Fool.com.

Fool contributor Travis Hoium has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool has no position in any of the stocks mentioned. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.

Copyright © 1995 - 2013 The Motley Fool, LLC. All rights reserved. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.