Trading activity in McDonald’s goes parabolic on E. coli outbreak

Traffic at McDonald’s locations across America probably wasn’t too high today, what with the E. coli breakout and all. The same cannot be said for McDonald’s stock: its shares changed hands like crazy on their way to a 5.1% loss on the day.

Trading volumes totaled about 18.7 million shares, one of the 50 busiest days on record (based on data going back to July 1980). For context, that’s about 650% above its recent 20-day average volume — and nearly 3x the typical amount of burgers the fast-food chain sells per day (though maybe not today!).

Here’s a look at what was happening to cause volumes to go haywire on McDonald’s top 10 most active sessions.

#1,2,4: 10/5/06, 10/4/06, 10/3/06

These were the final sessions in which McDonald’s was spinning off its Chipotle stake by swapping those shares for its own, producing a burst of trading activity. The stock price move wasn’t big on any of these days, though, with a gain of 0.4% on Tuesday and an advance of 0.8% on Wednesday followed by a 0.5% drop on Thursday, the heaviest-volume session.

#3: 1/28/08

The stock tumbled 5.6% after reporting earnings during the early innings of the Great Recession. You want #5 with that?

#5: 1/4/11

Down 3% on not too much news beyond a giant block trade that went up in the premarket and set a negative (and busy) tone for the day.

#6: 12/17/02

Warned the market of its imminent first-ever quarterly loss, tied to the cost of closing restaurants and a value menu that backfired. Shares plummeted 8%.

#7: 7/23/09

The golden arches reported lower-than-anticipated quarterly sales, catalyzing a 4.6% retreat in the stock.

#8: 1/11/08

A survey of McDonald’s franchises suggested that same-store sales growth decelerated to its lowest level since 2003, sparking a 6.6% drop in the stock and portending the no-good, all-bad day that was #3 on this list.

#9: 10/10/08

We could attribute this to the prior day’s announcement from Venezuela that it was shuttering some locations temporarily because of concerns about sales-tax collections. But we’d be lying: this just happened to be one of the most dramatic days of the financial crisis for markets, a Friday in which a rout in Asian markets fed through to the US and fueled massive losses that were somewhat pared by the close.

#10: 08/08/08

888 is a lucky number in Chinese culture and an auspicious one for McDonald’s. It’s by far the biggest gainer on this list, with shares up 6.2% on the day after McD’s reported strong same-store sales for July.