General Mills heads into its September 16 earnings report with short sellers growing more aggressive and the stock already bruised by a difficult few weeks.
The most telling signal is the sharp pick-up in short interest. Bears added nearly 6% to their position in a single session on September 10, pushing short interest to 8.7% of the free float — up 7% on the week. That follows a month-long pattern of covering from early August, when short interest briefly topped 10% of float, before bears returned with conviction last week. The borrow market remains loose by any measure: availability runs at roughly 293%, well above the 12-month floor of 145%, and cost to borrow is only 0.58% — elevated by recent standards (up 23% on the week) but still very cheap in absolute terms. That combination tells a clear story: shorts are accumulating, but the trade is not yet crowded enough to generate squeeze pressure. Options positioning is only mildly cautious, with the put/call ratio at 0.92 — just slightly above its 20-day average of 0.91 and well short of any extreme reading.
The bull-bear debate on GIS has sharpened into two distinct camps. Bears point to structural problems in pet food — cost overruns on Love Made Fresh, declining Wilderness sub-brand sales — and the risk that high promotional spending in North American Retail compresses margins even if top-line trends stabilise. Organic sales guidance for the year is roughly flat, with a slow start flagged for the first quarter. On the analyst side, BofA Securities lifted its target to $43 in early September while holding a Neutral rating. Most other firms cluster in the $32–$38 range, and JPMorgan carries an Underweight with a $35 target — already nearly where the stock is trading today. Bulls are counting on cost-cutting momentum and the hope that the worst of volume pressure is already priced in after a 20% year-to-date decline. The forward earnings yield has expanded meaningfully as the stock fell, and the PE multiple at around 11x is historically undemanding for the franchise.
The peer picture reinforces just how much GIS is lagging. CAG fell a comparable 6.5% on the week, and CPB and SJM also pulled back. But those names did not carry the same combination of rising shorts and a negative year-to-date gap that GIS does heading into the report. The most recent prior earnings print — in early July — produced a sharp one-day gain of roughly 8%, suggesting the stock can move hard in either direction when the quarter lands differently from expectations.
Wednesday's print will test whether the company's cost initiatives are enough to reassure a market that has been steadily voting no on the earnings trajectory all year.
See the live data behind this article on ORTEX.
Open GIS on ORTEX →ORTEX Market Intelligence content is generated by AI from a snapshot of ORTEX's proprietary data. Content is informational only and does not constitute investment advice.
