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Topic: How To Invest

Top stock picks: ConAgra earnings rise in latest fiscal year

ConAgra Foods Inc., symbol CAG on New York, makes a wide variety of packaged foods, including Chef Boyardee canned pasta, Hunt’s Tomato Sauce, Peter Pan peanut butter and Orville Redenbacher popcorn. The company’s consumer foods segment accounts for 63% of its sales, while the remaining 37% from its commercial foods business.

ConAgra is one of the companies we analyze in Wall Street Stock Forecaster, our newsletter that helps you spot the top stock picks in the U.S. markets.

Sales in the fiscal year ended May 29, 2011 rose 2.4%, to $12.3 billion from $12.0 billion in 2010. Revenue for the consumer food segment increased by 0.8%, as lower volumes offset higher selling prices for cooking oil, frozen foods and snacks. Sales of commercial foods rose 5.5%, mainly because the company increased prices for its flour in response to rising wheat costs.

Earnings rose 12.6%, to $817.0 million from $725.8 million. Earnings per share rose 16.0%, to $1.88 from $1.62, on fewer shares outstanding. If you exclude unusual items such as gains on hedging contracts that ConAgra uses to lock in prices for wheat, corn and other ingredients, it would have earned $1.75 a share in fiscal 2011.

You can get our clear buy/sell/hold advice on ConAgra and dozens of other companies that may be appropriate for the part of your portfolio you devote to U.S. stocks in Wall Street Stock Forecaster. What’s more, you can get the latest issue absolutely free. Click here to learn how.

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