McDonald’s Corp. (NYSE: MCD) is set to report earnings on Tuesday morning. As this fast-food giant has been showing negative sales trends at the same time that it has been the target of labor movements, 24/7 Wall St. wanted to conduct a full 360-degree earnings preview for the fast-food giant. The underlying question remains: Can McDonald’s escape the hangman?

Thomson Reuters has estimates of $1.38 in earnings per share and revenues of $7.198 billion. These represent a drop of almost 9% in earnings and a drop of almost 2% in revenue.

If McDonald’s offers up guidance, the Thomson Reuters consensus estimate is $1.34 in earnings per share (versus $1.40 a year ago) and $6.99 billion in revenue (down 1.5% from a year ago).

Again, the negative sales trends have been more than persistent. They have been ongoing for months. Even the move to a healthier choice of menu items has failed to change the trends.

The stock chart for McDonald’s shares is awful. After having been above $100 in June, the share price of close to $90 is well below long-term moving averages. Its 50-day moving average is $93.20 and the 200-day moving average is up at $95.78.

The $91.30 share price of late Monday afternoon compares to a consensus price target of $98.35. The last formal analyst downgrade we tracked was from Morgan Stanley back on October 6, with that rating being cut to Equal Weight from Overweight.

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Options traders are not exactly looking for a huge move. Our latest review of options shows that options traders are expecting a move of up to about $1.60 in either direction. Options trading looks more skewed to the call options, a bullish bias in theory, but neither is witnessing screaming volume.

McDonald’s was trading at $91.24, against a 52-week range of $89.34 to $103.78. McDonald’s has a market cap of nearly $90 billion.

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