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McDonald's (MCD) Stock Falls Amid Market Uptick: What Investors Need to Know

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In the latest market close, McDonald's (MCD - Free Report) reached $290.23, with a -0.36% movement compared to the previous day. The stock trailed the S&P 500, which registered a daily gain of 1.07%. Meanwhile, the Dow experienced a rise of 0.31%, and the technology-dominated Nasdaq saw an increase of 2.17%.

Heading into today, shares of the world's biggest hamburger chain had gained 7.75% over the past month, outpacing the Retail-Wholesale sector's gain of 6.53% and the S&P 500's gain of 2.92% in that time.

Investors will be eagerly watching for the performance of McDonald's in its upcoming earnings disclosure. In that report, analysts expect McDonald's to post earnings of $3.14 per share. This would mark a year-over-year decline of 1.57%. Meanwhile, the Zacks Consensus Estimate for revenue is projecting net sales of $6.75 billion, up 0.84% from the year-ago period.

Regarding the entire year, the Zacks Consensus Estimates forecast earnings of $11.67 per share and revenue of $26.01 billion, indicating changes of -2.26% and +2.04%, respectively, compared to the previous year.

Investors should also take note of any recent adjustments to analyst estimates for McDonald's. These recent revisions tend to reflect the evolving nature of short-term business trends. As such, positive estimate revisions reflect analyst optimism about the company's business and profitability.

Research indicates that these estimate revisions are directly correlated with near-term share price momentum. Investors can capitalize on this by using the Zacks Rank. This model considers these estimate changes and provides a simple, actionable rating system.

The Zacks Rank system, ranging from #1 (Strong Buy) to #5 (Strong Sell), possesses a remarkable history of outdoing, externally audited, with #1 stocks returning an average annual gain of +25% since 1988. Over the past month, the Zacks Consensus EPS estimate has shifted 0.25% downward. McDonald's is holding a Zacks Rank of #4 (Sell) right now.

In terms of valuation, McDonald's is currently trading at a Forward P/E ratio of 24.97. This indicates a premium in contrast to its industry's Forward P/E of 19.89.

One should further note that MCD currently holds a PEG ratio of 3.89. The PEG ratio is similar to the widely-used P/E ratio, but this metric also takes the company's expected earnings growth rate into account. The Retail - Restaurants industry had an average PEG ratio of 2.18 as trading concluded yesterday.

The Retail - Restaurants industry is part of the Retail-Wholesale sector. With its current Zacks Industry Rank of 149, this industry ranks in the bottom 42% of all industries, numbering over 250.

The Zacks Industry Rank assesses the strength of our separate industry groups by calculating the average Zacks Rank of the individual stocks contained within the groups. Our research shows that the top 50% rated industries outperform the bottom half by a factor of 2 to 1.

You can find more information on all of these metrics, and much more, on Zacks.com.


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