One Lap at a Time

As the autopsy of MCD Q2 winds down, USA McDonald's Owner/Operators should give some consideration to the next few calendar quarters. 

The third quarter is not too challenging since the USA was up a few percent in 2025 over 2024. But the fourth quarter will be a real challenge. The same-store sales increase from 2024 to 2025 was 6.8%. That's a tough number to lap.

The years go by fast, and we forget events. Here's what analyst Mark Kalinowski wrote about MCD Q4 2025:

January 27, 2026

"While McDonald’s U.S.’ Q4 2025 same-store sales appeared to have started off slowly thanks to what appears to have been an underperforming (at least underperforming relative to our expectations) Monopoly promotion. However, once McDonald’s started lapping meaningfully easier comparisons from the end-of-2024’s food-safety incident, trends likely improved. In addition, the early December Grinch Meal promotion appears to have been a resounding success. On top of all this, throughout the quarter, McDonald’s seems to be doing a better general job of promoting value to quick-service consumers, or at least it’s doing so notably better than some other large, quick-service burger concepts are. All in all, and based in part on our survey responses, we leave unchanged our +5.2% projection for McDonald’s U.S. same-store sales in Q4E. Sell-side consensus (according to Consensus Metrix) has ticked up to +4.8% in recent weeks."

Will management panic and throw everything against the wall like they did in the recent quarter? Of Course they will.

Will the Owner/Operatrors refuse to go along and only participate in a reasonable amount of discounting and promotion? We will see.