Should you buy McDonald's stock after its Q3 earnings?

McDonald’s Corp (NYSE: MCD) ended close to 2.0% up on Monday after reporting solid results for its third financial quarter.

McDonald’s stock has upside to $315

Still, David Palmer – an Evercore ISI analyst is convinced that the food stock has a lot more upside to unravel in the coming months.

He maintained his “buy” rating on McDonald’s stock today with a $315 price target that suggests about an over 20% upside from here. On CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street”, Palmer said this morning:

The competitive position of this company is extremely strong right now. They’ll continue to gain share both in the U.S. and important markets like Europe.

MCD currently pays a dividend yield of 2.57% which makes up for another good reason to have it in your portfolio.

McDonald’s is an inflation-protected company

On Monday, McDonald’s also slightly raised its guidance for adjusted operating margin to 47%. You can read the company’s full earnings release here.

The Evercore ISI analyst is bullish also because he sees the multinational as an “inflation-protected staple company”. Note that the New York listed firm also announced plans of raising prices in California next year.

David Palmer agreed that weight-loss drugs could mean a 0.5% hit to traffic but recommended owning McDonald’s stock for the “multi-year trends for U.S. and developing markets” that remained strong in the third quarter.

For these reasons, he told clients in a research note on Monday that MCD was worthy of a premium price to growth ratio.