What do you do when month after month you have nothing but bad data to report, such as in this case McDonalds with its weekly comparable store sales shown on the ugly charts below?
Simple: you have two choice - you either seasonally adjust the data (or in the case of US GDP, double-seasonally adjust it), or if that is not possible since unlike US GDP, your numbers are at least somewhat indicative of underlying reality, you stop reporting them altogether.
That's what McDonalds just did.
- MCDONALD'S LAST REPORTING OF MONTHLY COMPS WILL BE FOR JUNE
- MCDONALD'S SAYS JUNE SAME-STORE SALES WILL BE REPORTED WITH 2Q
From Bloomberg:
McDonald’s Corp. plans to stop reporting monthly same-store sales results. The company will provide same-store sales for June with its second-quarter earnings report, then cease providing the data, Heidi Barker, a spokeswoman, said in an e-mail.
And to think the new boss - who we hope did not promise the board anything about "transparency and accountability" - could have avoided all of this if, as we suggested, he had worn at least 37 piece of flair [5].
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