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McDonald’s $5 meal deal is an admission of self-inflicted wounds

Luke Kawa

The golden arches of history are long, but they bend back towards offering Americans cheap food.

Shares of McDonald’s rose 2.6%, their best session since January 2023, after Bloomberg reported that the fast food chain plans to offer a $5 meal deal in the US. Shares of competitors in the quick service restaurant industry broadly fell in response.

This news comes on the heels of McDonald’s April 30 earnings call, where CEO Chris Kempczinski bemoaned the state of the consumer, saying “it is clear that broad-based consumer pressures persist around the world.”

“The macro headwinds have been more significant than I think we even anticipated coming into the year,” added CFO Ian Borden. 

But most economic data we’ve received this year, particularly in the US, doesn’t suggest the consumer is in dire straits. And industry peers weren’t sounding as dour as McDonald’s during their earnings calls. So what’s the deal?

“McDonald’s raised prices significantly, and consumers are finding other places to spend,” writes Samuel Rines, macro strategist at WisdomTree, in a May 9 note.

Chris Turner, CFO at Yum! Brands Inc, talked up same store sales growth at Taco Bell that was above the industry average in the first quarter of 2024, and flagged a pick-up in same store sales growth so far in the second quarter. Part of the success, in his eyes? The Cravings Value Menu introduced in January to better appeal to price-centric consumers.

“We think Taco Bell is incredibly well-positioned for what I would describe as a more normal consumer environment today,” he said. “Consumers care more about value in the US.”

Over at Domino’s, CFO Sandeep Reddy discussed the conscious decision to avoid pushing too many price increases through in 2023, and how this contributed to same store sales growth of 5.6% in the US during the first quarter.

A key focus was on “making sure customer value was maintained,” he said.

McDonald’s is trying to recapture and articulate its value niche (which may or may not be successful with customers and franchisees), while its competitors already have evidence that their tactics are working.

“Domino’s and Taco Bell talked about maintaining their value-oriented propositions,” added Rines. “Meanwhile, that is only now entering the formula for McDonald’s.”

Which raises the question… how did we get to a place where McDonald’s wasn’t offering a clear and obvious value proposition to their customers? Where competitors metaphorically ate McDonald’s lunch as consumers ate a cheaper option?

This may be a part of why those companies — particularly Domino’s — are handily outperforming McDonald’s in the stock market so far this year.

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Citi initiates coverage of Planet Labs with “buy” rating

Planet Labs was up after aerospace and defense analysts at Citi initiated coverage with a “buy/high risk” rating and $19 price target.

The stock is up more than 40% this week, after a strong earnings result that spotlighted the company’s growing opportunity in linking its core business of capturing daily images of the planet with AI technologies.

Citi analysts noted the potential for a positive flywheel effect for Planet Labs as it deepens its focus on integrating AI into its offerings:

“AI is accelerating the conversion of pixels to decisions, where Planet’s daily scan and deep archive offer a uniquely large training corpus and broad-area foundation for automation. AI-enabled solutions (MDA/GMS/AMS) are gaining traction with customers such as NATO and the U.S. DoW, validating the approach of integrating AI into broad-area monitoring products... These AI moves create a compounding advantage: more coverage generates more training data, which improves models, which in turn increases product utility and addressable demand.”

The stock has also caught the attention of some of the retail trading crowd, with call options activity spiking on Thursday as traders rode the market reaction to the results.

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After a good night’s rest, investors decide they liked Rivian’s AI Day event, sending the stock surging

Wall Street didn’t seem to care very much about Rivian’s AI news when it dropped yesterday, but today is a new day.

Shares of the EV maker are up more than 16% on Friday morning, with call volumes already at about 70% of their 20-day average just 20 minutes into the trading session. The price action propelled Rivian stock to its highest level since January 2024.

Following Rivian’s Thursday event, in which it said it would replace Nvidia chips with its own and hinted at a robotaxi plan, Needham & Co. sharply hiked its price target on the company from $14 to $23. Analyst Chris Pierce wrote that the AI event “strengthened [Needham’s] conviction in RIVN’s longer term autonomy roadmap and points of differentiation vs legacy OEMs.”

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Fermi drops after tenant terminates $150 million contract

Fermi fell in early trading on Friday after it disclosed that its first tenant for its planned Project Matador power grid site has terminated its $150 million contract.

Fermi, which was cofounded by former Energy Secretary Rick Perry, plans to build nuclear energy infrastructure to power data centers. In September, Fermi announced that it had entered into a nonbinding letter of intent with a tenant to lease a portion of Project Matador. That contract was terminated on Thursday, Fermi said in a Friday regulatory filing.

Fermi, which currently generates no revenue, said it is talking to other potential tenants for the Project Matador Site and “remains confident that it will be able to meet its expected power delivery schedule at Project Matador as the demand for behind-the-meter power for AI remains robust over the near and long term.”

Fermi, which went public in October, is now down more than 70% since its IPO. Last month the company had its first quarterly earnings report, in which it reported steeper-than-expected losses.

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JPMorgan downgrades Roblox, says hits like “Steal a Brainrot” are past their peak

Shares of kid-focused gaming platform Roblox fell about 3% in premarket trading on Friday following a downgrade by JPMorgan to “neutral” from “overweight.”

As part of the firm’s 2026 outlook, analyst Cory Carpenter cited key headwinds that could dampen Roblox’s prospects next year. Among them: the need for more viral hits like “Grow a Garden” and “Steal a Brainrot,” which Carpenter says are past their peaks.

According to JPMorgan, further engagement hits could also come from Russia’s ban of the platform (the bank noted that Russia’s ban could affect up to 10 million daily active users, as it’s a top five market) and the facial age estimation rollout coming next month, which Roblox has said may “negatively impact platform engagement in the short term.”

Also looming for Roblox and the entire gaming industry is Take-Two’s expected mass hit “Grand Theft Auto VI.” Per Carpenter, the rollout of the Fornite and Unity Software partnership could also create more noise for Roblox.

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