McDonald’s beats on profit and revenue, reverses U.S. same-store sales declines

McDonald’s is expected to report its third-quarter earnings before the bell on Tuesday.

Here’s what Wall Street analysts surveyed by LSEG are expecting the company to report:

• Earnings per share: $3.20 expected
• Revenue: $6.82 billion

The earnings report comes a week after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued an advisory notice that warned about a deadly E. coli outbreak linked to McDonald’s Quarter Pounder burgers. After temporarily pulling the menu item from roughly a fifth of its U.S. restaurants, the company said Sunday that the burger will return to affected locations, sans slivered onions.

Health authorities have cleared the chain’s fresh beef patties as the source of the outbreak, and the investigation has zeroed in on the slivered onions that are included in the menu item. As of Friday, 75 health cases have been tied to the outbreak, including one death of an older adult.

McDonald’s sales had been lagging even before the outbreak. For the company’s third quarter, analysts are expecting the company to report same-store sales declines of 0.6%, dragged lower by weak international demand, according to StreetAccount estimates.

As inflation-weary consumers dine out less, McDonald’s has been rolling out value menus and combo meals in some of its biggest markets. In the U.S., where it launched a $5 combo meal in late June, its same-store sales are expected to rise 0.5%.

Shares of McDonald’s have fallen 6% since it was first tied to the E. coli outbreak. So far this year, the stock is roughly flat. McDonald’s has a market cap of about $210 billion.

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