McDonald’s Reports Strong Earnings, Helped by All-Day Breakfast; New York Times, 1/25/16

Stephanie Strom, New York Times; New York Times; McDonald’s Reports Strong Earnings, Helped by All-Day Breakfast:

"McDonald’s surprised even the most bullish investors on Monday, reporting stronger-than-expected quarterly gains in earnings thanks largely to serving items from its breakfast menu all day.

Same-store sales, the numbers for stores open at least a year, rose 5.7 percent in the United States in the quarter that ended Dec. 31, and 5 percent on a global basis. It was the strongest gain in such sales in almost four years.

“We begin 2016 in a much better place than we were 12 months ago,” Steve Easterbrook, chief executive of McDonald’s, said during a conference call with investment analysts.

McDonald’s has been in a turnaround that Mr. Easterbrook started when he became chief executive last March. The company changed its structure to try to encourage the exchange of ideas around the globe, and it announced it would sell off some 3,500 of its company-owned stores."