Moments ago McDonalds reported its latest sales numbers which were basically atrocious, worse than usual, and missed across the board. From BBG:
- MCD MARCH TOTAL COMP SALES DOWN 3.3%, EST. DOWN 2.1%
- MCD MARCH US COMP SALES DOWN 3.9%, EST. DOWN 3.0%
- MCD MARCH EUROPE COMP SALES DOWN 2.9%, EST. DOWN 1.6%
- MCD MARCH APMEA COMP SALES DOWN 7.3%, EST. DOWN 4.5%
- APRIL GLOBAL COMPARABLE SALES ARE EXPECTED TO BE NEGATIVE
At this point the operational challenges facing the company are clearly unfixable in its current iteration which is broken beyond merely a CEO switch, and not even a "buy 1 Big Mac, get 3 Big Macs (and Joseph A Banc suits) free" strategy will fix the ailing fastfood maker, whose secular collapse is best captured by the charts below.
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So what does the stock do? The algos are "luvin' it."
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Why? Because with the company clearly facing an operating dead end it will have no choice but to "grow" earnings through even more buybacks.
