McDonald's franchises and operates McDonald's restaurants. Co.'s menu includes hamburgers and cheeseburgers, Big Mac, Quarter Pounder with Cheese, Filet-O-Fish, several chicken sandwiches, Chicken McNuggets, wraps, McDonald's Fries, salads, oatmeal, shakes, McFlurry desserts, sundaes, soft serve cones, bakery items, soft drinks, coffee, McCafé beverages and other beverages. Co.'s restaurants provides a full or limited breakfast menu, which may include Egg McMuffin, Sausage McMuffin with Egg, McGriddles, biscuit and bagel sandwiches, oatmeal, breakfast burritos and hotcakes. In addition to these menu items, the restaurants sell a variety of other products during limited-time promotions.
When researching a stock like McDonalds, many investors are the most familiar with Fundamental Analysis — looking at a company's balance sheet, earnings, revenues, and what's happening in that company's underlying business. Investors who use Fundamental Analysis to identify good stocks to buy or sell can also benefit from MCD Technical Analysis to help find a good entry or exit point. Technical Analysis is blind to the fundamentals and looks only at the trading data for MCD stock — the real life supply and demand for the stock over time — and examines that data in different ways. One of those ways is to calculate a Simpe Moving Average ("SMA") by looking back a certain number of days. One of the most popular "longer look-backs" is the MCD 200 day moving average ("MCD 200 DMA"), while one of the most popular "shorter look-backs" is the MCD 50 day moving average ("MCD 50 DMA"). A chart showing both of these popular moving averages is shown on this page for McDonalds. Comparing two moving averages against each other can be a useful visualization tool: by calculating the difference between the MCD 200 DMA and the MCD 50 DMA, we get a moving average convergence divergence indicator ("MCD MACD"). The MCD MACD chart, in conjunction with the chart of the moving averages, basically helps in visualizing how the moving averages are showing convergence (moving closer together), or divergence (moving farther apart). |