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McDonald's (MCD) Outpaces Stock Market Gains: What You Should Know

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In the latest trading session, McDonald's (MCD - Free Report) closed at $273.39, marking a +1.13% move from the previous day. This change outpaced the S&P 500's 0.75% gain on the day. At the same time, the Dow added 0.55%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq lost 0.01%.

Heading into today, shares of the world's biggest hamburger chain had lost 2.68% over the past month, lagging the Retail-Wholesale sector's gain of 5.15% and the S&P 500's gain of 3.49% in that time.

Investors will be hoping for strength from McDonald's as it approaches its next earnings release. In that report, analysts expect McDonald's to post earnings of $2.43 per share. This would mark year-over-year growth of 8.97%. Meanwhile, our latest consensus estimate is calling for revenue of $5.67 billion, down 5.57% from the prior-year quarter.

MCD's full-year Zacks Consensus Estimates are calling for earnings of $9.91 per share and revenue of $22.91 billion. These results would represent year-over-year changes of +6.79% and -1.33%, respectively.

Investors should also note any recent changes to analyst estimates for McDonald's. These recent revisions tend to reflect the evolving nature of short-term business trends. With this in mind, we can consider positive estimate revisions a sign of optimism about the company's business outlook.

Based on our research, we believe these estimate revisions are directly related to near-team stock moves. We developed the Zacks Rank to capitalize on this phenomenon. Our system takes these estimate changes into account and delivers a clear, actionable rating model.

The Zacks Rank system, which ranges from #1 (Strong Buy) to #5 (Strong Sell), has an impressive outside-audited track record of outperformance, with #1 stocks generating an average annual return of +25% since 1988. Within the past 30 days, our consensus EPS projection has moved 0.04% higher. McDonald's is holding a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold) right now.

Valuation is also important, so investors should note that McDonald's has a Forward P/E ratio of 27.27 right now. This valuation marks a premium compared to its industry's average Forward P/E of 22.01.

Also, we should mention that MCD has a PEG ratio of 3.16. This metric is used similarly to the famous P/E ratio, but the PEG ratio also takes into account the stock's expected earnings growth rate. MCD's industry had an average PEG ratio of 2.12 as of yesterday's close.

The Retail - Restaurants industry is part of the Retail-Wholesale sector. This industry currently has a Zacks Industry Rank of 153, which puts it in the bottom 40% of all 250+ industries.

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

Make sure to utilize Zacks.com to follow all of these stock-moving metrics, and more, in the coming trading sessions.


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