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One of our top U.S. dividend stocks, Procter & Gamble knows which products to keep and which to sell off for greater long-term profits.
In last Friday’s Wall Street Stock Forecaster Hotline, we analyzed the great results that McDonald’s Corp., $111.55, symbol MCD on New York (Shares outstanding: 941.8 million; Market cap: $105.7 billion; www.mcdonalds.com), reported for the three months ended September 30. It was a standout quarter, particularly compared to the weak results that many companies have reported this year.
The first media comment we saw on these results took the view that the stock had gone up enough to offset the improvement in its results. The investment reporter quoted what he called “cynical observers” who said “there was almost no way but up” for the stock. These observers pointed out that McDonald’s had trailed the market by 62 percentage points during a recent three-year period, and that the company had only registered growth in global same-store sales in one quarter out of the past seven.
The statistics in the last sentence are true. But when you analyze a stock, you can come to a wide range of conclusions, depending on the breadth of data you choose, and the beginning and end dates of the periods you look at.
McDonald’s stock price rose from pennies per share (adjusted for stock splits along the way) in the 1970s to a peak of $45 in 1999. Like a lot of high-quality stocks, it suffered in the first few years of the new millennium, and fell to as low as $12 in early 2003. Then it began another monumental rise.
It sailed through the 2008-2009 market downturn with barely a scratch. It hit an all-time high of $67 in August 2008. The following month, the U.S. federal government took control of mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and Lehman Brothers filed the largest bankruptcy case in U.S. history. McDonald’s fell on this news like the rest of the market. In October 2008, it hit $46, an 18-month low. The stock then resumed its rise and hit $100 in October 2011.
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The first media comment we saw on these results took the view that the stock had gone up enough to offset the improvement in its results. The investment reporter quoted what he called “cynical observers” who said “there was almost no way but up” for the stock. These observers pointed out that McDonald’s had trailed the market by 62 percentage points during a recent three-year period, and that the company had only registered growth in global same-store sales in one quarter out of the past seven.
The statistics in the last sentence are true. But when you analyze a stock, you can come to a wide range of conclusions, depending on the breadth of data you choose, and the beginning and end dates of the periods you look at.
McDonald’s stock price rose from pennies per share (adjusted for stock splits along the way) in the 1970s to a peak of $45 in 1999. Like a lot of high-quality stocks, it suffered in the first few years of the new millennium, and fell to as low as $12 in early 2003. Then it began another monumental rise.
It sailed through the 2008-2009 market downturn with barely a scratch. It hit an all-time high of $67 in August 2008. The following month, the U.S. federal government took control of mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and Lehman Brothers filed the largest bankruptcy case in U.S. history. McDonald’s fell on this news like the rest of the market. In October 2008, it hit $46, an 18-month low. The stock then resumed its rise and hit $100 in October 2011.
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YUM! BRANDS INC., $72.89, New York symbol YUM, plans to spin off its operations in China as a separate firm. The company will hand out shares in Yum China to its own investors, who will not be liable for capital gains taxes until they sell. The company aims to complete the spinoff by the end of 2016. Yum China will operate 6,900 fast-food outlets under the KFC, Pizza Hut and Taco Bell banners. In the three months ended September 5, 2015, this division supplied 57% of Yum’s overall sales....
WAL-MART STORES INC., $58.87, New York symbol WMT, fell 11% this week after warning that higher employee wages, new investments in its online businesses and the negative impact of the high U.S. dollar will slow its earnings growth. The company earned $4.84 a share in its 2015 fiscal year, which ended January 31, 2015, but it expects its profits to dip to between $4.40 and $4.70 a share in fiscal 2016. It also forecasts a further 6% to 12% decline in 2017. That’s much worse than the consensus prediction of a 4% gain. However, Wal-Mart feels its expanded online presence and higher efficiency will increase its earnings per share in 2018 and 2019....
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YUM! BRANDS INC., $70.28, New York symbol YUM, fell 14% this week after reporting lower-than-expected quarterly results. The company also cut its full-year forecast due to slow sales in China following last year’s food-safety problems at its KFC outlets. In the three months ended September 5, 2015, Yum earned $421 million, up 4.2% from $404 million a year earlier. Per-share profits gained 6.7%, to $0.95 from $0.89, on fewer shares outstanding. Without unusual items, including a writedown of its Mexican real estate holdings, Yum earned $1.00 a share in the latest quarter, missing the consensus estimate of $1.07....
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ALCOA INC., $9.52, New York symbol AA, plans to split itself into two separate firms. One will focus on Alcoa’s upstream operations, which include mining bauxite ore and refining it into bulk aluminum products. This business will be the world’s fourth-largest aluminum producer, with $13.2 billion of annual revenue and gross earnings of $2.8 billion. The other company will focus on engineered aluminum products, such as components for cars and jet engines. This firm has $14.5 billion of annual revenue and gross earnings of $2.2 billion....