Topic: How To Invest

Wall Street Stock Forecaster Hotline – Friday, January 7, 2022

Article Excerpt

CONAGRA BRANDS INC., $34.75, New York symbol CAG, is still a buy. Through your shares, you tap the maker of some of North America’s most popular food brands. They include Chef Boyardee canned pasta, Hunt’s tomato sauce, Orville Redenbacher popcorn and Reddi-wip whipped cream. The company is facing higher costs for ingredients and shipping, which is squeezing its profits. However, the spread of the new Omicron variant of COVID-19 should continue to fuel demand for eat-at-home foods. Conagra is also raising its selling prices to offset the rising costs. In the company’s fiscal 2022 second quarter, ended November 28, 2021, sales rose 2.1%, to $3.06 billion from $3.00 billion a year earlier. That beat the consensus forecast of $2.98 billion. If you exclude the businesses that Conagra recently sold as well as foreign exchange rates, sales improved 2.6%. That reflects a 4.2% drop in volume, offset by a 6.8% rise in prices. Disregarding costs related to a cost-cutting plan and other unusual items, overall…