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McDonald's (MCD) to Spruce Up Menu With Chicken Sandwiches

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McDonald's Corporation (MCD - Free Report) plans to add three crispy chicken sandwiches to its menu next month. The news, which surely is music to ears of McDonald's lovers, also highlights the company’s focus on tapping the growing demand for chicken burgers.

The new crispy chicken sandwiches will be made available in three different variants crispy, spicy and deluxe. While deluxe chicken sandwich will have shredded lettuce, Roma tomatoes and mayonnaise,crispy chicken sandwich will have pickles on a toasted, buttered potato roll.

McDonald’s continues to focus on menu innovation to attract customers. During third-quarter 2020, it introduced a spicy flavor with regard to the Chicken McNuggets. In October 2020, the company unveiled the McCafé Bakery line, offering apple fritter, blueberry muffin, cinnamon roll and its McCafé Coffee. Going forward, McDonald's remains committed to expanding its chicken offerings by leveraging food-line extensions of customer favorites. It also intends to work on operational and formulation changes to improve the taste of its burgers.

 

Price Performance

Shares of the company have gained 11.5% in the past six months, compared with the industry’s rally of 22.4%. Decline in comps has been hurting the company. Its comps declined for the third straight quarter after reporting positive comps in the preceding 19 quarters. In the third quarter, global comps declined 2.2% against a gain of 5.9% in the prior-year quarter. In second-quarter 2020, comps were down 23.9%.

However, the company is benefiting from increase in drive-thru sales. Moreover, increased focus on delivery and accelerated deployment of EOTF restaurants in the United States are commendable. Additionally, the company is making every effort to drive growth in international markets.

Zacks Rank & Key Picks

McDonald’s currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

Some better-ranked stocks in the same space are Jack in the Box Inc. (JACK - Free Report) , Ruth's Hospitality Group, Inc. and Yum! Brands, Inc. (YUM - Free Report) , each carrying a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy).

Jack in the Box, Ruth's Hospitality and Yum! Brands have a three-five year earnings per share growth rate of 10.6%, 15% and 12.3%, respectively.

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