The latest trading session saw McDonald's (MCD) ending at $299.89, denoting a -0.07% adjustment from its last day's close. The stock outperformed the S&P 500, which registered a daily loss of 0.23%. At the same time, the Dow lost 0.91%, and the tech-heavy Nasdaq gained 0.1%.

Prior to today's trading, shares of the world's biggest hamburger chain had lost 6.59% over the past month. This has was narrower than the Retail-Wholesale sector's loss of 11.71% and the S&P 500's loss of 12.13% in that time.

Market participants will be closely following the financial results of McDonald's in its upcoming release. The company plans to announce its earnings on May 1, 2025. On that day, McDonald's is projected to report earnings of $2.68 per share, which would represent a year-over-year decline of 0.74%. Meanwhile, our latest consensus estimate is calling for revenue of $6.13 billion, down 0.58% from the prior-year quarter.

For the full year, the Zacks Consensus Estimates project earnings of $12.25 per share and a revenue of $26.4 billion, demonstrating changes of +4.52% and +1.87%, respectively, from the preceding 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. Hence, positive alterations in estimates signify analyst optimism regarding the company's business and profitability.

Empirical research indicates that these revisions in estimates have a direct correlation with impending stock price performance. 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 moved 0.11% higher. As of now, McDonald's holds a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold).

Investors should also note McDonald's's current valuation metrics, including its Forward P/E ratio of 24.5. This represents a premium compared to its industry's average Forward P/E of 21.48.

One should further note that MCD currently holds a PEG ratio of 3.07. Comparable to the widely accepted P/E ratio, the PEG ratio also accounts for the company's projected earnings growth. MCD's industry had an average PEG ratio of 2.02 as of yesterday's close.

The Retail - Restaurants industry is part of the Retail-Wholesale sector. This group has a Zacks Industry Rank of 168, putting it in the bottom 33% of all 250+ industries.

The Zacks Industry Rank is ordered from best to worst in terms of the average Zacks Rank of the individual companies within each of these sectors. Our research shows that the top 50% rated industries outperform the bottom half by a factor of 2 to 1.

Keep in mind to rely on Zacks.com to watch all these stock-impacting metrics, and more, in the succeeding trading sessions.

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McDonald's Corporation (MCD) : Free Stock Analysis Report

This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

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