McDonald’s is the largest restaurant owner-operator in the world, with 2024 system sales of $131 billion across more than 43,000 stores and 115 markets. McDonald’s pioneered the franchise model, building its footprint through partnerships with independent restaurant franchisees and master franchise partners around the globe. The firm earns roughly 60% of its revenue from franchise royalty fees and lease payments, with most of the remainder coming from company-operated stores across its three core segments: the United States, internationally operated markets, and international developmental/licensed markets.

The stock market was smacked yet again on Monday -- but were it not for some late buying, things could have been a lot worse. The S&P 500 (SPX), S&P 100 (OEX), Nasdaq, and Nasdaq 100 (QQQ) all approached their closing lows from April 8 and bounced. Not surprisingly, all four indices retraced about 61.8% of their recent rallies before they popped. The SPX and OEX lost 2.4%, while the Nasdaq and QQQ both gave up 2.5%. NYSE market breadth was weak again, with 2,174 more decliners than advancers. That almost matches April 4 and April 10, which were the worst breadth days in the past couple of weeks. The NYSE advances/total issues reading was 15%, not as bad as the recent 9% and 11%. NYSE advancing volume/total volume was 24%, also not as weak as the four recent days between 7% and 14%. Bullishly, new NYSE 52-week lows plunged from over 1,000 (or 37% of issues traded) to just 40 (and only 1% of issues traded). The optimal setup for the market would be for the indices to make a new closing low for a day or two, lead everyone to assume that another down leg was in play, and then reverse higher, catching many off guard again. A new low most likely would set up a number of bullish momentum divergences on a daily and weekly basis, as well as a handful of bullish breadth divergences. For the SPX, we would need a close under 4,983; for the OEX, 2,406; for the Nasdaq, 15,268; and for the QQQ, 416. A new closing low is not necessary to put in at least an intermediate-term bottom, but it helps. For a rally, we need to see strong breath, which typically kicks in after corrections and bear markets. (Mark Arbeter, CMT)

This pick list highlights constituents of the Morningstar US Large Cap Index that we believe offer investors the best risk-adjusted return prospects. Stocks of large-cap companies where neither growth nor value characteristics predominate. Stocks in the top 70% of the capitalization of the U.S. equity market are defined as large cap.

McDonald's is the world's largest restaurant chain, with more than 40,000 fast-food restaurants in over 100 countries. With a market capitalization of about $221 billion, MCD is a large-cap growth stock.