McDonald’s Shows What Continued Earnings Success Looks Like (MCD)

McDonald’s Corporation (NYSE: MCD) has managed to beat earnings again.  The Golden Arches sell fast food in good times and bad.  Earnings were $1.33 EPS on a near 10% revenue gain to $ 6.82 billion; Thomson Reuters had estimates of $1.30 EPS and $6.81 billion in revenues.

Fourth quarter global comparable sales rose by about 7.5%, and that s-s-s report for the United States came to 7.1% in the quarter.  Europe somehow managed growth of 7.3%, indicating that perhaps default stress sell hamburgers and fires.  The sales in Asia/Pacific, Middle East and Africa were up 6.9%.

U.S. was the driving force somehow, another move at least somewhat tied to dollar strength and international uncertainty with annual comparable sales performance coming in the best since 2006.

The company is signaling that January sales are expected to remain strong at +5.5 to +6.5%.

McDonald’s stock is up only about 0.5% at $101.45 on not very active early trading volume against a 52-week range of $72.89 to $102.22.  Keep in mind that the new high that recently put in was an all-time high.

JON C. OGG