Goldman Sachs Reiterates Buy, $44 Target on General Mills

Goldman Sachs maintains its Buy rating and $44 target price on General Mills (NYSE: GIS) as it compares the company with Walmart (NYSE: WMT), which joins Nielsen's FDMx data.

Goldman Sachs notes, "When Walmart is added to the FDMx data we generally find two consistencies for GIS: volume is worse, price growth is a bit better…but not enough to keep dollar sales growth whole. Sluggish performance of dry dinners and yogurt, in particular, are weighing on FDMW results. On the bright side, however, canned soup sales and volume growth is substantially stronger at Walmart and it continues to capture market share gains in cereal in the FDMW channels."

GIS closed at $39.96 per share on Thursday.