2. Despite this 3.34% annual earnings per share growth, General Mills has returned 19.42% annually since 2012. This gap between earnings growth and investment returns would only be justifiable if the stock was undervalued at the beginning of the measuring period. But General Mills traded between 15x earnings and 16x earnings during 2012, in line with historical norms. Meanwhile, General Mills now trades at nearly 25x this year's expected earnings. That is an unprecedented spike in the P/E ratio of General Mills. This year marks only the second time in 35 years that the price of General Mills has averaged above 20x normalized earnings, and it is doing so by a substantial margin.