General Mills (NYSE: GIS), a company that shares supermarket shelves with colleagues like Kraft (NYSE: KFT), Kellogg (NYSE: K), and Campbell Soup (NYSE: CPB), reported a very decent Q2 on Wednesday. According to Melly Alazraki's Stocks in the News article, General Mills really kicked the analysts and their estimates in the you-know-what. The call was for the food producer to yield $1.23 per share. Instead, the company delivered $1.36 per share. Way to go!

But, how was the stock received? After an initial pop, shares settled down. In fact, they closed only slightly up at the end of day on Wednesday, rising a mere 0.16%. I was a little surprised by the muted reaction when I saw the big beat on the bottom line, but I think the market wants to be a little cautious here. As this news piece points out, General Mills has some complicated hedging issues going on, as well as issues relating to competition from Campbell Soup and private-label brands. Campbell has been turning up the heat on General Mills. I'm not sure if the market should worry so much about the battle between Campbell and its cereal-making nemesis, but worrying about private-label competition is warranted. You know how consumers are: they want low, low, low prices. And once they get them, they want them even lower! Of course, General Mills' brand equity and advertising can combat a lot of that, but we are in a nasty era of worries over job security and the safety of retirement accounts. The negative wealth effect is in full swing, so supermarket shoppers may find less-expensive fare more attractive (honestly, though, if I'm used to a certain brand, it's difficult for me to switch to the generic equivalent, even in times of crisis).

Is General Mills a buy here? Well, it's certainly cheap for the long-term holder in me. However, the short-term holder in me says not so fast. My gut tells me this one will pull back. Like I said, the market is obviously in a cautious mood since it didn't see fit to reward General Mills with a more significant uptick on the close. And, since I feel it should have received a higher price on the close, and since it failed to get it, that tells me that it may trend lower from here.

Disclosure: I don't own any company mentioned; positions can change at any time.