Consumer Goods Report

General Mills, upon further investigation, won't do much for our portfolio. Although, they are one of the largest packaged foods companies in the US (Cheerios, Lucky Charms, Wheaties, Chex, Betty Crocker, Pillsbury, Gold Medal, Green Giant, Hamburger Helper, Old El Paso, Pop Secret, Colombo, and Yoplait), and some of their products are experiencing major growth, they are as a company only expecting 3% growth in 2007 and have aimed their strategy toward expanding their presence in the dry cereal market (where they already have 30% market share and competition is stiff). Also due to their commodity inputs (i.e. corn) margins are tight. So food conglomerates might not be the way to go, but.....

Seeing as our portfolio has a long-term focus, despite our want to see immediate leaps and bounds of return, I think it might be time to invest in everyone's favorite consumer goods conglomerate. That's right, Procter & Gamble. They make 22 product lines each with sales over $1 billion including Tide, Cover Girl, Crest, Charmin, Panteen Pro-V. Morningstar projects that they P&G will see consistant 6% growth over the next five years, their operating profit margins should grow, and thinks the stock is undervalued. It certainly won't bring large immediate gains, but it might be a good buy and hold.

I have also added a few stocks to watch in the consumer goods portfolio in our Yahoo account, take a look at them, Toyota's up today with more news that it is on track to overtake GM as the largest car manufacturer.