MCD - McDonald's Corporation
| Previous Close | 194.00 |
| Open | 194.57 |
| Bid | 193.54 x 900 |
| Ask | 193.56 x 800 |
| Day's Range | 193.31 - 194.79 |
| 52 Week Range | 169.04 - 221.93 |
| Volume | 1,637,797 |
| Avg. Volume | 3,905,224 |
| Market Cap | 146.99B |
| Beta (3Y Monthly) | 0.48 |
| PE Ratio (TTM) | 25.40 |
| EPS (TTM) | 7.62 |
| Earnings Date | Jan. 28, 2020 - Feb. 3, 2020 |
| Forward Dividend & Yield | 5.00 (2.56%) |
| Ex-Dividend Date | 2019-11-29 |
| 1y Target Est | 221.89 |
- Bloomberg
Revive the Middle Class by Bringing Back Unions
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- If the U.S. is going to make a big dent in income inequality and raise living standards for the middle class, it’s going to need a multipronged approach. Higher taxes and more spending on health care will help. Minimum-wage laws can raise pay for workers at the bottom without reducing employment much, but they only benefit a relatively small slice of the workforce. But something else is needed.One big idea is to bring back unions and collective bargaining. Several teams of economists have examined the historical record and concluded that unions were important in reducing inequality. But although unions are still important in the public sector, in the private sector they’ve been almost wiped out.People argue about the cause of the decline. Some blame weak enforcement of labor laws or the rise of state right-to-work laws. Others blame global competition and technology. But Martin Manley, an entrepreneur who previously served as assistant secretary of the Labor Department under President Bill Clinton, thinks he has the answer. In a new book titled “A Better Bargain: Organizing Employers and Workers to Grow America’s Middle Class,” Manley argues that the U.S. union system was doomed from the start.Before 1935, Manley notes, there were several types of collective bargaining in the U.S. But the one that ended up being enshrined in law, in the National Labor Relations Act, was called enterprise bargaining. Under that law, workers at each workplace have to vote to unionize; if they do, all workers at that workplace are covered by the union contract. If they reject the union down, however, there’s no collective bargaining.This system has a huge downside: competition. Suppose the workers at a McDonald’s want to form a union. The managers know that if the workers unionize, wages will go up and prices for hamburgers at that McDonald’s will rise. That will put the restaurant at a competitive disadvantage versus the non-unionized Burger King down the street, eventually resulting in layoffs. The managers will make this argument to the workers, who probably will find it convincing.If both the McDonald’s and the Burger King could coordinate and unionize together, competition would be no problem; wages would rise and the profits of the two giant corporations might fall while consumers paid higher prices for burgers. But because U.S. labor law forces each workplace to act independently on unionization, they can’t effectively coordinate. The situation is even worse for companies such as General Motors that face international competition because there’s no way for GM workers to coordinate with Volkswagen workers in Europe or Toyota workers in Asia.Manley has a two-pronged solution to this problem. Both pieces would require a major rewrite of U.S. labor law. And both would involve a shift from enterprise-level bargaining to sectoral bargaining, with negotiations taking place in an entire industry, not individual workplaces or companies.The first piece is industry associations — groups of companies in the same industry and region that bargain collectively with their workers all at once. Though it might seem counterintuitive to let employers collaborate like this, it would remove the competitive threat that unions represent, because the resulting agreements would constrain all businesses equally. Manley suggests that industry associations could also collaborate to create more efficient and flexible labor markets by providing worker training, sharing knowledge about workers across company lines and so on.Second, Manley would make unions nonexclusive. Under his preferred system, an industry association would bargain simultaneously with all the organizations that workers in that industry belonged to, be they unions, worker co-ops, professional associations or advocacy groups. The various worker groups would be awarded representation at the negotiating table proportional to their membership (which could overlap). Manley envisions various worker groups competing with each other for members by offering services other than wage bargaining.These are good ideas. To really be effective, they’ll require one crucial element: that workers who don’t belong to any organization are all covered by the contracts that result from sector-level labor negotiations. A law like this is the reason that the French and German workforces are still mostly covered by collective bargaining, despite falling unionization:If combined with Manley’s idea for competing labor organizations and proportional representation in negotiations, sectoral bargaining would undo the decades-long decline in private-sector collective bargaining almost overnight. It wouldn’t require unions to rebuild their membership; all it would need is a few worker organizations to pop up and start bargaining on behalf of everyone. At first, these early movers would get almost all the seats at the negotiating table, which would induce other workers to form other organizations to get a piece of the action.Presidential candidates such as Pete Buttigieg and Elizabeth Warren have backed sectoral bargaining, showing that the idea is catching on. Innovative ideas like Manley’s could allow sectoral bargaining to take root even faster and to be carried out in a way that many employers would embrace. Ultimately, a more cooperative relationship between workers and management would result in a more sustainable system for supporting the middle class.To contact the author of this story: Noah Smith at nsmith150@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: James Greiff at jgreiff@bloomberg.netThis column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.Noah Smith is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He was an assistant professor of finance at Stony Brook University, and he blogs at Noahpinion.For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
- GlobeNewswire
McDonald’s Corp. Investigated by Block & Leviton LLP For Breach of Fiduciary Duties
BOSTON, Nov. 14, 2019 -- Block & Leviton LLP (www.blockesq.com), a securities litigation firm representing investors and whistleblowers nationwide, is investigating whether.
- The Guardian
McDonnell takes on McDonald's over tax and workers' pay
McDonald’s workers stage a protest outside Downing Street in London. Photograph: Leon Neal/Getty ImagesJohn McDonnell has accused McDonald’s of failing to pay enough tax in Britain and demanded a wage rise for its workers and trade union rights to organise at its restaurants.Speaking at a protest arranged by striking McDonald’s workers outside Downing Street, the shadow chancellor said the US company was mistreating its UK workers and should raise their pay to £15 an hour and pay its fair share of tax.McDonnell told the Guardian: “They are one of those companies that makes large amounts of profits and then doesn’t pay their workers properly and don’t pay their taxes effectively. It’s one of the things we will clamp down on.“We are saying to McDonald’s: pay your workers a proper wage, treat them properly and actually also pay your taxes.”Workers from six of the chain’s restaurants were on strike to demand wages of at least £15 an hour, mirroring a US campaign for fast-food workers to earn $15 an hour. Significantly higher than the government minimum wage of £8.21 an hour for over-25s, the demand is also higher than Labour’s policy to raise the minimum wage to at least £10 an hour, including for younger workers. McDonnell said he supported the workers’ demand for £15 an hour at McDonald’s.John McDonnell joins a protest by striking McDonald’s workers at Downing Street. Photograph: Penelope Barritt/Rex/ShutterstockThe shadow chancellor said the US company’s executives were paid millions of pounds a year, while some UK workers lived a “poverty existence”, resorting to food banks and sofa surfing.McDonald’s allowed its outgoing chief executive, Steve Easterbrook, to keep stock awards worth more than $37m this month, as well as about $675,000 (£524,000) in severance pay, despite him being fired for having a consensual relationship with an employee.Filings with Companies House show McDonald’s paid £75m in UK corporation tax last year, up from £64.9m in 2017. It made pre-tax profits of £406.3m, up from £341m in 2017, despite a slide in sales of almost £80m to £1.5bn.Sign up to the daily Business Today email or follow Guardian Business on Twitter at @BusinessDeskThe EU ruled last year that an arrangement between McDonald’s and Luxembourg, which allowed the firm to pay almost no tax on franchise royalties in the EU and US, did not break Brussels’ laws.McDonald’s said as few as nine of about 130,000 of its employees in Britain were on strike. It did not respond to requests for comment about its tax affairs.A spokesperson said: “We are committed to investing in our workforce, listening to and doing what is right by them.”McDonald’s added that it complied with UK tax rules, saying: “We pay substantial amounts of corporation tax in the UK.”
- Zacks
3 Dividend Paying Stocks to Consider as Stock Market Looks to Mark Sixth Week of Gains
As equities look to continue their remarkable run but nothing has been set in stone regarding the trade war, dividend paying stocks may be a solid route to take as things progress.
- Zacks
"Merry Coffee": Starbucks Debuts 2019 Holiday Cups
Starbucks (SBUX) just debuted their highly-anticipated holiday cups for 2019, kicking off the holiday season for the coffee giant (and consumers).
- Bloomberg
Former McDonald's CEO Gets to Keep His Classroom. What's His Lesson?
(Bloomberg Opinion) -- Steve Easterbook, the now-former CEO of McDonalds, will retain his role as a visiting fellow at the Oxford University Centre for Corporate Reputation, reports Business Insider. At first blush this may seem deliciously ironic — a corporate titan, fired for having a relationship with a subordinate, giving lectures on PR! But I’d be more interested in hearing what he has to say now than I would have been before his ouster.Think about it. Who better to give lectures on corporate reputation than someone who has stumbled? Too many of these lectures are full of pious platitudes from people with squeaky-clean pasts. It’s like a nun giving a lecture on sex education. (No offense to nuns.) It would be more educational to hear from someone who has faced the public spotlight’s unforgiving glare, someone who has made mistakes and lived to learn from them.Moreover, while the McDonald’s board was right to show Easterbrook the door for violating company policy — which unambiguously forbids leaders from having romantic relationships with subordinates, whether they’re direct reports or not — there’s been no indication that this relationship was otherwise improper. A single man having a consensual relationship is not the kind of thing that should get one blacklisted from every corporate board or side project, even if it did violate the organization’s rules.But it’s very easy for confounding factors to cloud this particular case. First, there are our still-raw feelings over MeToo.For corporate America, MeToo provided catharsis. For too long, too many women had been belittled, intimidated and violated. Too many powerful men had been protected, often at great cost to their firms. Too many good guys were oblivious to what was happening.MeToo is also what social scientists call a “norms cascade” (a useful phrase I learned from law professor Joan Williams). What used to be OK suddenly isn’t anymore, and now no one knows how to act. It’s natural, after a norms cascade, to question which behaviors should be jettisoned and which are still acceptable. So it’s healthy to take stock of things like consensual work relationships with power differentials, which can be tricky to navigate even in the best cases.But we can’t forget that MeToo was about harassment, not sex. It might seem that a great way to eliminate harassment would be to ban sex, but they’re two different things. And given that about a third of people have dated a coworker — and about one in three of them ended up getting married — I hope no overzealous compliance officer tries anything as silly as banning workplace romances entirely. Finding love is hard enough already.The second confounding factor in Easterbrook’s case is executive compensation. In an era of well-publicized income inequality, lots of us have capital-F Feelings about CEO pay. Much has been made of Easterbook’s $42 million going-away gift from McDonalds, a company where burger-flippers can earn less than $10 an hour.According to the Economic Policy Institute, CEO compensation is up almost a thousand percent since 1978, while worker pay has risen only 12%. CEOs today earn more than 200 times what the typical schmo earns — even as recently as 1989, they made only 58 times as much.It makes sense that the rest of us might feel a certain schadenfreude when CEOs stumble. After all, sanctimony is one of life’s free pleasures. It also seems reasonable to hold chief executives to a relatively high standard of behavior, perhaps one that’s approximately 58 times higher than what goes for the rest of us.Even so, for Easterbrook, losing such a high-profile job is surely punishment enough. Let the man keep his Oxford lecturing side-hustle. He probably has more insight to share now than he did a couple of weeks ago.To contact the author of this story: Sarah Green Carmichael at sgreencarmic@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Mary Duenwald at mduenwald@bloomberg.netThis column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.Sarah Green Carmichael is an editor with Bloomberg Opinion. She was previously managing editor of ideas and commentary at Barron’s, and an executive editor at Harvard Business Review, where she hosted the HBR Ideacast. For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinion©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
- Zacks
The Zacks Analyst Blog Highlights: Shake Shack, Grubhub, McDonald???s and Chipotle
The Zacks Analyst Blog Highlights: Shake Shack, Grubhub, McDonald???s and Chipotle
- Yahoo Finance
Papa John's CEO: We want to conquer lunch
All options are on the table for Papa John's to boost sales and profits, says Papa John's CEO Rob Lynch.
- Yahoo Finance
McDonald's is in a leadership crisis, but investors are sticking with the stock
Quite the week for McDonald's, headlined by a new CEO taking the helm. Here's why one investor is sticking with the stock.
- Zacks
Shake Shack's Shake Up
The retail food & restaurant industry has traded down over 6% since the beginning of October, with some of America's favorite restaurant stocks falling even futher.
- Market Realist
Wendy’s Stock Rose Due to Q3 Beat, Unlike Peers
Wendy’s (WEN) stock was trading more than 4% higher in the pre-market session. Today, the company posted stronger-than-expected third-quarter results.
- Zacks
The Zacks Analyst Blog Highlights: Verizon Communications, McDonald's, TOTAL, Broadcom and UPS
The Zacks Analyst Blog Highlights: Verizon Communications, McDonald's, TOTAL, Broadcom and UPS
- Yahoo Finance
Papa John's reports strong sales, announces management shakeup
Papa John's reported positive same-store sales growth in North America for the first time in two years during its third quarter.
- Bloomberg
Does Every Car Need a Steering Wheel and Seat Belts? A Tech Lawyer Says No
(Bloomberg) -- When I first met Silicon Valley lawyer David Estrada in 2014, he was an executive at Lyft Inc. who was tussling with New York City regulators. Lyft wanted to allow its drivers to ferry passengers around the city without special licenses. He lost that battle but won the war, helping to persuade dozens of states and countries to change their laws and usher in the age of ride-hailing.It turns out that Estrada’s two years at Lyft were just one part of a 15-year slalom through some of Silicon Valley’s most disruptive companies. He had previously worked at Google X, crafting the first autonomous vehicle legislation in states like California, Florida and Nevada. After Lyft, he moved to Kitty Hawk, Larry Page’s secretive flying car company, and then became the head of legal and policy at Bird Rides Inc., nudging more than 100 U.S. cities and several countries to accept (though not necessarily embrace) street-side electric scooter rentals.Now Estrada is taking on a new role at Nuro Inc., a Mountain View, California-based self-driving car startup founded by two of his former Google colleagues and backed by nearly $1 billion from SoftBank Group Corp.’s Vision Fund. Nuro envisions autonomous cars not only without drivers but without passengers, either. Its goal is to create lightweight vehicles designed for delivering packages, groceries and meals to people’s homes.“My hope is that I can help Nuro achieve the first commercial success with autonomous vehicles, which is really what I set out to do when I started on this path back at Google,” says Estrada, who must first convince regulators and citizens who will likely be skeptical of another wave of Silicon Valley-style disruption in their communities.Nuro completed a pilot program to deliver groceries this year in Scottsdale, Arizona. Next year in Houston, it plans to start delivering food from Kroger Co. and Domino’s Pizza Inc. via an upgraded electric vehicle prototype that can travel up to 25 miles per hour.Estrada will eventually have to navigate a tangle of state and federal authorities. States license individual drivers and oversee their roads and highways, while the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration regulates federal motor vehicle safety standards. The Feds must be convinced to accommodate an entirely new class of self-driving delivery vehicles that theoretically don’t need steering wheels, seats, seat belts, windshield wipers or rear-view mirrors. Nuro’s application for an exemption from safety standards for its vehicles is pending.Estrada plays up the safety of Nuro cars, which are designed to tolerate damage to its cargo in collisions (what’s a few broken eggs in a crash?) while minimizing the impact to other vehicles, pedestrians and pets.He’ll face other concerns as well. In addition to further congesting already clogged city streets, driverless delivery vehicles threaten to put more than 400,000 delivery drivers in the U.S. out of business.Estrada argues that Nuro cars won’t supplant existing delivery people but expand the overall market while creating more jobs inside supermarkets and restaurants and lowering the cost of home delivery services like DoorDash and UberEats. Of course, he’ll have to deliver that message at a time when Amazon.com Inc. is trying to eliminate cashier jobs with its Go store, and chains like McDonald’s Corp. are working on automating functions like the drive-through.Which is why Silicon Valley companies pay him the big bucks. Nuro co-founder and President Dave Ferguson acknowledges the formidable regulatory and PR challenges and says he hopes Estrada can “push us over the finish line.”This article also ran in Bloomberg Technology’s Fully Charged newsletter. Sign up here.And here’s what you need to know in global technology newsUber braces. Many early investors and employees can sell their stock for the first time on Wednesday.FCC inquires. The agency want to know if equipment from Huawei has been installed near sensitive military bases.Match Group dumped. Shares plummeted after the online dating giant disappointed investors with a lackluster financial report.To contact the author of this story: Brad Stone in San Francisco at bstone12@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Mark Milian at mmilian@bloomberg.netFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
- Zacks
Top Analyst Reports for Verizon, McDonald's & TOTAL
Top Analyst Reports for Verizon, McDonald's & TOTAL
- IPO-Edge.com
How Former McDonald’s CEO Easterbrook May Leave with a Supersized $60 Million
McDonald’s Corporation Former CEO Easterbrook Departed without “Cause” So Keeps Valuable Stock and Options By John Jannarone At first glance, it might appear that Stephen Easterbrook left his post as CEO of McDonald’s Corporation with peanuts. But a closer look reveals he may keep restricted stock and options worth over $60 million. On Sunday, the […]
- Yahoo Finance
Shake Shack has a Grubhub problem
Shake Shack expects sales disruption in the near term following a transition to an exclusive delivery partnership with Grubhub.
- Yahoo Finance
Shake Shack plunges after Q3 sales miss expectations
Shake Shack reported earnings that beat expectations; however, revenue and same-store sales fell short of Wall Street estimates.
- Market Realist
McDonald’s Stock: Analysts Worry after CEO Exit
McDonald’s (MCD) stock fell 2.7% on Monday. Notably, the company's board fired president and CEO Steve Easterbrook on Sunday.
- Reuters
U.S. boards end era of impunity for 'skirt-chasers,' McDonald's firing shows
Directors of U.S. companies are increasingly showing zero tolerance for executives' sexual relationships with employees, even consensual ones, an attitude shift evident in McDonald's Corp's dismissal of CEO Steve Easterbrook this week. Boards of directors in a different era turned a blind eye to executives' so-called "skirt-chasing," corporate governance experts said. "Things people denied or swept under the carpet before, they no longer do," said Jeffrey Sonnenfeld, a dean of leadership programs at the Yale School of Management.
- Reuters
Former McDonald's chief Easterbrook steps down from Walmart board
Steve Easterbrook, the chief executive officer of McDonald's Corp who was dismissed over the weekend, has resigned from Walmart Inc's board, the retailer said on Tuesday. On Sunday, McDonald's, the world's biggest fast-food chain, said it had dismissed Easterbrook over a recent consensual relationship with an employee, which the board determined violated company policy. "Easterbrook's decision to resign was not due to any disagreement with the company on any matter relating to its operations, policies or practices," Walmart said in a regulatory filing https://www.sec.gov/ix?doc=/Archives/edgar/data/104169/000010416919000077/form8-kx1142019.htm.
- Bloomberg
McDonald’s Fires CEO Steve Easterbrook Over Relationship With Employee
(Bloomberg) -- McDonald’s Corp. fired Chief Executive Officer Steve Easterbrook because he had a consensual relationship with an employee, losing the strategist who led the company’s charge into online ordering and delivery.The burger chain’s board voted Friday to terminate Easterbrook, 52, after investigating the relationship, which violated company policy, according to a statement Sunday. McDonald’s policy doesn’t allow the CEO to have a relationship with anyone in the company. Chris Kempczinski, who runs U.S. operations, was promoted to president and CEO.“This was a mistake,” Easterbrook said of his actions in an email sent to employees. “Given the values of the company, I agree with the board that it is time for me to move on.”Easterbrook resigned as director from the board of Walmart Inc., the retailer said in a Nov. 4 filing adding that the decision to leave was not due to any disagreement over its policies or practices.McDonald’s shares fell as much as 2.9% in New York Monday, hitting its lowest point since April. The stock had almost doubled since Easterbrook took over in March 2015, more than twice the gain in the S&P 500 Index, giving the company a market capitalization of $147 billion.Easterbrook was seen as relentless in his push to capture a new generation of customers who would be willing to order through smartphone apps, pay online, and choose to have food delivered to home or work instead of venturing into outlets. To stress urgency, he tied executives’ compensation to the speed and breadth of the delivery rollout, and worked with vendors including UberEats.His strategies are paying off: Same-store sales, a key metric of success, recovered with the arrival of all-day breakfast, and he axed poorly selling items and added new ones while creating lower priced value menus to draw in diners.Strong Argument“You can make a very strong argument that Easterbrook was the best CEO in the restaurant industry,” said Michael Halen, who covers the sector for Bloomberg Intelligence.He is eligible for 26 weeks of severance pay -- equal to about $675,000 based on his annual salary of $1.35 million -- and 18 months of health benefits, according to filings on Monday. He also signed nondisclosure and noncompete agreements and will keep some options and equity awards. Kempczinski, meanwhile, will receive a base salary of $1.25 million with an target annual bonus of 170% that amount.Will Slabaugh, an analyst with Stephens Inc. said Easterbrook’s departure will likely “come as a fairly significant negative for investors, given his history of impressive and consistent global results,” including turning around the core U.S. business and driving stock gains.However, he cited Kempczinski’s established relationship with franchisees and past involvement in strategy and development as a positive for the incoming leader.Higher ExpensesHis relationship with restaurant owners will be crucial, because Easterbrook’s changes caused some franchisees to chafe at the expenses being pushed down from the corporate headquarters in Chicago.McDonald’s independent group of franchisees, the National Owners Association, didn’t immediately reply to requests for comment. Store owners are scheduling a private conference call to discuss how to respond and protect the brand, according to a person familiar with their plan who asked not to be identified.“Large public companies are less likely to tolerate such behavior because of reputational risk concerns,” said Yuen Teen Mak, a professor at NUS Business School in Singapore wrote in an email. “The nature of the business may also be a factor -- after all, their target customers are families and children.”Regardless of Easterbrook’s successes, the company’s board had little room for error in how it handled the British executive’s transgression at a time when even consensual relationships draw scrutiny -- and especially when there’s an imbalance of power. In May, the company revamped its harassment policy after coming under pressure from employees, labor advocates and members of Congress.In a letter responding to an inquiry from U.S. Senator Tammy Duckworth, from the chain’s home state of Illinois, Easterbrook said the company has improved its policy and is committed “to ensuring a harassment and bias-free workplace.”“In the current MeToo climate, it will be even more difficult for corporations to retain a CEO in such situations,” said NUS’ Mak. “It is absolutely the right thing for McDonald’s to do and to do it swiftly.”For the first time in 19 years, more CEOs were dismissed for ethical lapses than for financial performance or board struggles in 2018, according to a study by one of the PriceWaterhouseCooper’s units that analyzed CEO turnovers in the world’s 2,500 largest companies.Must ForfeitExecutives who depart after violating company policy typically don’t get to collect severance and must forfeit any unvested long-term compensation. Easterbrook held unvested shares and stock options worth roughly $31.3 million as of Friday’s close in New York, according to data compiled by Bloomberg.Easterbrook is divorced, according to a report in the Wall Street Journal.At the time, the American Civil Liberties Union and the union-backed Fight For $15 just announced a handful of new lawsuits and 20 complaints to the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. They accused the company of failing to prevent misconduct including groping and inappropriate comments from supervisors, as well as retaliation for speaking up.With Easterbrook now out of the picture, it’s left to Kempczinski to continue the push into delivery and electronic ordering. He joined McDonald’s in 2015 to oversee global strategy, business development and innovation. He most recently served as president of the U.S. business and, like Easterbrook, was deeply involved in the drive to expand online delivery.‘Important Partner’“Chris has been an important partner to me over the last four years and is the ideal person to take on the role of CEO,” Easterbrook said in his departure note. Joe Erlinger, who joined the company in 2002, will become president of the U.S. business. He will receive $775,000 in base salary with a target annual bonus set at 100% of that amount.Kempczinski, who helped implement many of the recent changes as head of U.S. operations, will maintain his predecessor’s focus on technology and believes the company’s investments will pay off, according to an interview with the Wall Street Journal.“There isn’t going to be some radical, strategic shift. The plan is working,” the new CEO told the Journal, adding that he wants to discuss any concerns with franchisees.Kempczinski, who’s also joining McDonald’s board, is taking over a behemoth chain, with more than 38,000 locations in 100 countries, including 14,000 in the U.S.He’ll have to contend with stagnant customer traffic across the restaurant industry. Growth has been fueled in recent quarters by higher prices, but chains have struggled to bring in larger volumes of diners. Competition has intensified as consumers eat out less and buy more prepared foods from grocery stores.In recent quarters, McDonald’s has been one of the industry’s best performers, with same-store sales rising 5.9% globally in the latest quarter, more than analysts had projected.Comfortable FootingIt hasn’t been quite as easy in its home market, where heavy discounting by rivals and more competition at breakfast has made it harder to get customers in its doors, resulting in a slowdown in customer traffic last quarter. But those who do come in are spending more and more, keeping the company on comfortable footing.The company has sought to renovate its image by remodeling its locations -- but franchisees have complained about the high costs associated with changes like building a wall to hide the kitchen operations behind the cash registers. In 2018, it slowed the pace of remodels, letting operators complete them by 2022 instead of the initial goal of 2020.The improvements have also included self-ordering kiosks and even extra drive-thru lanes in some locations.While the company’s fundamentals are solid, the CEO change could presage additional disruption, Piper Jaffray analyst Nicole Miller Regan said in a note.“Our experience leads us to take a more cautionary view, noting the potential lack of momentum and time involved in formalizing a new team,” she said.(Updates with details on Easterbrook’s resignation from the board of Walmart in the fourth paragraph.)\--With assistance from Hailey Waller, Anders Melin, Ari Altstedter and Lisa Wolfson.To contact the reporters on this story: Matthew G. Miller in New York at mmiller144@bloomberg.net;Jonathan Roeder in Chicago at jroeder@bloomberg.net;Leslie Patton in Chicago at lpatton5@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: James Ludden at jludden@bloomberg.net, ;Rachel Chang at wchang98@bloomberg.net, Kevin Miller, Bhuma ShrivastavaFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
- Bloomberg
U.S. Stocks Rise to Records as Treasuries Slump: Markets Wrap
(Bloomberg) -- U.S. stock benchmarks climbed to all-time highs, while Treasuries tumbled as trade optimism fueled demand for risk assets.The Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed Monday to claim its first record since July. The S&P 500 and Nasdaq indexes also hit new highs after a report that the U.S. and China are closing in on a partial trade deal and the Federal Reserve cut interest rates last week. The 10-year Treasury yield rose to 1.78% and the dollar advanced versus major peers.In company news, McDonald’s Corp. fell after firing its chief executive and Under Armour Inc. sank after disclosing an accounting probe -- both declines weighing heavily on consumer shares. Banks and industrial firms led the Stoxx Europe 600 Index toward a four-year high after the U.S. commerce secretary said tariffs on importing vehicles into the American market might be unnecessary. All major Asian markets advanced. A gauge of emerging-market stocks was set for its biggest gain in three weeks.Investors are trying to push up stocks for a fifth successive week and add to the 18% gain this year already notched by a global gauge of equities. Earnings continue to roll in around the world, with Uber Technologies Inc. and Marriott International Inc. still due Monday. In China, trade data at the end of this week will give details for October against a backdrop of easing tensions on negotiations with U.S. counterparts.“The earnings season primarily has been so much better than we expected it to be,” JJ Kinahan, chief market strategist at TD Ameritrade, said by phone. “Not that it’s an unbelievable earnings season, but it’s been so much above expectations. The rhetoric on tariffs has been mostly positive and we continue to see positive numbers out of particularly employment, but really in general about the economy.”Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross expressed optimism the U.S. would reach a “phase one” trade deal with China this month and said licenses would be coming “very shortly” for American companies to sell components to Huawei Technologies Co. President Donald Trump told reporters Sunday that a trade deal, if completed, will be signed somewhere in the U.S.Elsewhere, crude-oil futures climbed. The initial public offering process for Saudi Aramco officially started on Sunday, with the stock likely to begin trading in Riyadh next month. Valuations vary widely.Here are some key events coming up this week:Earnings are due from companies including: Uber and Marriott International on Monday; Singapore Airlines on Tuesday; SoftBank and BMW on Wednesday; Walt Disney, Toyota, Deutsche Telekom on Thursday.U.S. durable goods data is due Monday along with factory orders.Regional Fed presidents including Charles Evans, John Williams and Patrick Harker speak at events on Wednesday.Central bank monetary decisions are due Tuesday in Australia and Thursday by the Bank of England.The USDA World Agricultural Supply and Demand Estimates Report for November comes out FridayThese are the main moves in markets:StocksThe S&P 500 Index rose 0.4% as of 4 p.m. New York time; the Dow Jones Industrial Average climbed 0.4%.The Stoxx Europe 600 Index jumped 1% to a four-year high.Germany’s DAX Index surged 1.4% to a 17-month high.The MSCI Emerging Markets Index rose 1.3% to the highest in more than four months.CurrenciesThe Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index increased 0.3%, the biggest gain in five weeks.The euro fell 0.4% to $1.1127.The British pound fell 0.5% to $1.2884.The Japanese yen weakened 0.4% to 108.62 per dollar.BondsThe yield on 10-year Treasuries rose seven basis points to 1.78%.The two-year rate added four basis points to 1.59%.Germany’s 10-year yield rose three basis points to -0.35%.Britain’s 10-year yield climbed six basis points to 0.725%.CommoditiesThe Bloomberg Commodity Index jumped 0.5% to a seven-week high.West Texas Intermediate crude increased 0.6% to $56.52 a barrel.Gold weakened 0.4% to $1,508.53 an ounce.\--With assistance from Haidi Lun, Ravil Shirodkar and Adam Haigh.To contact the reporter on this story: Sarah Ponczek in New York at sponczek2@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Jeremy Herron at jherron8@bloomberg.net, Andrew DunnFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com©2019 Bloomberg L.P.
- Reuters
UPDATE 2-McDonald's says Easterbrook eligible for six months severance pay
McDonald's Corp said on Monday former Chief Executive Officer Steve Easterbrook was eligible for six months of severance pay, as part of his termination agreement with the company. The company also said its global Chief People Officer David Fairhurst will leave McDonald's, but did not provide any further details. On Sunday, McDonald's, the world's biggest fast-food chain, said it had dismissed Easterbrook over a recent consensual relationship with an employee, which the board determined violated company policy.
