New Highs for General Mills, Oppenheimer, and SkillSoft Shares (GIS, OPY, SKIL)

New 52-week highs today for shares of General Mills, Inc. (NYSE:GIS), Oppenheimer Holdings Inc. (NYSE:OPY) and SkillSoft Public Limited Company (NASDAQ:SKIL), the future looks good for all three companies. 

General Mills (NYSE:GIS) peaked at $68 a share today and finished Friday at $67.94.  In the last 3 months GIS shares have ran up 16% and paid out a 47 Cent dividend in July and October.  Joe Lazzaro said it best last month, General Mills has solid brands, good cash flow, and room for margin expansion on new manufacturing efficiencies add to the positive story. The First Call FY2009/FY2010 EPS estimates for GIS are $4.50 to $4.86.

Technically, General Mills' stock chart is beautiful - a strong uptrend, with minor, constructive pull-backs, and a price that continually stays above the 50-day moving average - a sign that institutional investors are adding to their GIS positions.

The analysts agree covering GIS, the stock has potential:

SkillSoft Public Limited Company (NASDAQ:SKIL) shares were up 8.5% today and hit a new 52-week high of $10.93.  Yesterday the company reported Q3 profit increased 63% on higher margins as results for the provider of Internet-based corporate training easily beat the Street. 

SkillSoft raised ts fiscal-year forecast, this time to earnings of 68 cents to 71 cents a share on revenue of $312 million to $314 million. In August it had forecast earnings of 59 cents to 62 cents and revenue of $307 million to $310 million.

For the current quarter, the company expects earnings of 12 cents to 15 cents and revenue of $76.2 million to $78.2 million. Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expected 13 cents and $76 million, respectively.  SkillSoft also again boosted its fiscal-year research-and-development spending outlook to $44 million to $45 million from $40.5 million to $42.5 million.

Oppenheimer Holdings Inc. (USA) (NYSE:OPY) hit a new 52-week high of $30.73 and finished the day at $30.61 a share.  Oppenheimer is middle-market investment bank and full service broker-dealer. The Company is engaged in a range of activities, including retail securities brokerage, institutional sales and trading, investment banking (both corporate and public finance).

OPY has been a steady trade, unlike many of the 'financial services' companies, in the last 6 months shares are up 111%.