McDonald's comes in shy of revenue estimates in Q4

McDonald’s Corp (NYSE: MCD) is trading down in premarket on Monday after reporting disappointing revenue for its fiscal fourth quarter.

What hurt sales for McDonald's in Q4?

The fast-food chain attributed weakness in its recently concluded quarter to an industry-wide decline in foot traffic in the last two months of 2023.

Israel-Hamas war, it added, also weighed on sales in Q4 as many on social media called for a boycott after its Israeli franchisee announced discounts for soldiers. Still, Chris Kempczinski – the chief executive of McDonald’s said in a press release today:

The multinational saw its same-store sales come in 3.4% up in Q4 versus a whopping 10.9% increase it had reported in the same quarter last year. $MCD is still up roughly 20% versus its low in mid-October.

McDonald's Q4 earnings snapshot

• Earned $2.04 billion versus the year-ago $1.9 billion
• Per-share earnings also climbed from $2.59 to $2.80
• Adjusted EPS $2.95 printed at as per the press release
• Revenue jumped 8.0% year-over-year to $6.41 billion
• Consensus was $2.82 a share on $6.45 billion in revenue

McDonald's will likely issue its guidance for the current quarter on the earnings call that you can tune into on this link. CEO Kempczinski also said on Monday:

Note that Wall Street expects McDonald’s to generate $27.14 billion in revenue on $12.53 of earnings on a per-share basis in fiscal 2024. Wall Street currently has a consensus “overweight” rating on $MCD.