Looking into the current session, General Mills Inc. (NYSE:GIS) is trading at $58.31, after a 0.70% decrease. Over the past month, the stock decreased by 3.30%, but over the past year, it actually went up by 0.76%. With questionable short-term performance like this, and great long-term performance, long-term shareholders might want to start looking into the company's price-to-earnings ratio.

The P/E ratio measures the current share price to the company's earnings per share. It is used by long-term investors to analyze the company's current performance against its past earnings, historical data and aggregate market data for the industry or the indices, such as S&P 500. A higher P/E indicates that investors expect the company to perform better in the future, and the stock is probably overvalued, but not necessarily. It also shows that investors are willing to pay a higher share price currently, because they expect the company to perform better in the upcoming quarters. This leads investors to also remain optimistic about rising dividends in the future.