General Mills Hits Its Numbers

9:00am (EST)

Futures are pointing towards a lower open this morning following declines in the overseas markets and a stronger dollar. The bulls we doing a fairly good job of taking us higher on Wednesday but after the Federal Reserve indicated it would start pulling back some emergency supports as the economy improves, they started to retreat.

Markets in Europe and Asia slipped this morning as the dollar made ground against the euro on speculation the central bank might increase rates sooner than expected. The Dow Jones fell 11 points yesterday and finished at 10,441 after trading to a high of 10,552.

Making matter worse was the fact the weekly jobless claims came in worse-than-expected. Wall Street was expecting first-time unemployment claims to dip to a seasonally adjusted 465,000 last week, down from 474,000 the previous week but we came in at 480,000.

One stock that could buck the trend this morning is General Mills (GIS, $68.29, down $0.50). The company reported earnings before the bell this morning and came up roses.

General Mills said it earned $566 million, or $1.66 a share, compared to net income of $378 million, or $1.09 a share, in the year-ago quarter. Revenues rose to $4.08 billion from $4.01 billion and excluding items, General Mills said it earned $1.54 a share in the latest period.

Wall Street was expecting the company to earn $1.44 a share on sales of $4 billion. Even better, General Mills also raised its 2010 forecast to a range of $4.52 to $4.57 a share, upping previous guidance of $4.40 to $4.45 a share. Analysts had been looking for full-year earnings of $4.51 a share.

As we head to press, Dow futures are lower by 62 points to 10,327 while the Nasdaq futures are off 10 to 1,789. S&P 500 futures are down 8 to 1,097. Current subscribers, please check the Members Area for the trade updates…

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General Mills Hits Its Numbers

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