Blog Posts by Chris Nichols

Burger King's (BKW) first quarter was a mixed one on the headline numbers, but factoring in its business restructuring and its sales-day counts helped put the results in a better light.

The Miami-based hamburger seller said Friday that it earned $35.8 million, or 10 cents a share, in the first quarter, up from $14.3 million and 4 cents a share last year. Adjusted earnings were 17 cents a share, as analysts expected. Operating expenses were down sharply, by $260.5 million, as fewer restaurants were company owned, which boosted profitability.

Revenue, at $327.7 million, fell 42.5% from last year, though that's a direct result of the company selling some of the stores it owned to franchisees through a program that's still ongoing. The top line exceeded estimates of about $305 million, according to FactSet. (The full results for the quarter can be found here.)

Burger King's same-store sales, the measure that compares sales at stores open for around a year, fell 1.4%. This was partly

For Coach (COH), big moves after earnings reports are becoming a habit. That trend was intact Tuesday when the high-end handbag seller topped analysts' earnings estimates and posted surprisingly bright North American numbers, lifting the shares 11%.

New York-based Coach was expected to earn 80 cents a share on sales of $1.18 billion in the fiscal third quarter, according to FactSet, but it exceeded both, turning a profit of 84 cents a share with revenue of $1.19 billion. However, it was the North American segment, its largest, that was the real standout.

While the China component of Coach's business remained strong, with sales rising around 40% year over year for the third consecutive quarter, domestic sales totaled $792 million, up 7% from the prior year. More impressively, same-store sales were much better than predicted, climbing 1%, compared with a decline of 1.4% that had been foreseen by Wall Street analysts.

Coming into the quarter, it would have been easy to imagine a drab

McDonald's (MCD) met estimates for its earnings and revenue in the first quarter, but same-store sales were sluggish amid the need to keep prices down and customer traffic up.

The company said Friday it had sales of $6.60 billion, with a profit per share of $1.26, in the January through March period. In the same quarter last year, McDonald's earned $1.23 a share on revenue of $6.55 billion. Analysts surveyed by FactSet and Bloomberg were looking for $1.26 on the bottom line, while the Reuters consensus outlook was $1.27. The sales expectation was right around $6.6 billion.

Directionally, same-store sales were a different matter. Comparable sales worldwide were down 1%, a number that was actually slightly better than the 1.1% decline projected by analysts. Still, it continues several months of shallow comparable sales for the Oak Brook, Ill., Big Mac seller. Whether it's a surprise in a slightly positive manner is secondary to the fact that comps aren't staying as elevated as McDonald's

Shares of McDonald's (MCD) are the highest they've ever been, a fact that's especially impressive considering all hasn't necessarily been well in the land of Ronald and friends of late.

McDonald's remains a gigantic company with ample devotees, but the last few months have been a little odd for the Oak Brook, Ill., fast-food chain. That's largely because the consistently positive monthly same-store sales numbers the company turned in for nearly a decade came to an end last fall. Since the streak was halted, comparable sales have continued on a disappointing path.

Source: McDonald's

While that trend contributed to a 12% drop in the stock last year, it clearly hasn't discouraged investors entirely, considering where the shares are now. So far this year, monthly comps have been negative for January and February, though the stock is up nearly 14% year to date, outpacing the Dow Jones Industrial Average, of which McDonald's is a component. On April 12, it closed at a record high of

Precious metals miners were rebounding a bit Tuesday as gold and silver halted their decline, though the extent of the recovery wasn't matching the full force of the plunge in the prior session.

Gold futures were a horror show over the past two trading days, registering a drop the extent of which some traders had never seen. However, in recent action, gold was up $31.70, or 2.3%, to $1,392.80 an ounce. Silver was adding 39 cents, or 1.7%, to $23.75 an ounce a day removed from its own grim outing.

Worth noting here is that a Wall Street firm that last week said it was time to sell gold -- Goldman Sachs (GS) -- reiterated its continuing pessimism even in the wake of the severe pullback. According to a report in The Wall Street Journal, the firm is "maintaining our short."

Only a day ago, shares of the miners were among the worst stocks in the equities market, with several hitting the lowest levels they'd seen in a year or more. However, most were in positive territory or at least

Gold was diving 9.5%, reaching at its lowest level since February 2011 on Monday, and equities related to the metal were feeling the wrath of traders.

A downturn was in effect throughout the commodities complex, but gold was suffering through a two-session stretch unlike anything it's seen in three decades. On the day, it was falling $143 an ounce to $1,358.40. Silver was also slumping, shedding 11.8% to $23.23 an ounce.

Gold, five-day chart. Source: FactSet

For the shares of the miners themselves, the selloff was astonishing -- 52-week lows, or worse, were not uncommon. The sector's stocks were much weaker than the market overall, which was down in its own right.

Barrick Gold (ABX), one of the biggest members of the group, was giving back 10.5% to $20.24. At one point, it was under $20, a price it hasn't broken since October 2008 when the market was falling apart amid the financial crisis. It was also necessary to return to those days to find a session in which Barrick plunged

Believers in the housing recovery might contend they got another bit of evidence to bolster their case Thursday, while believers in a re-expanding home market bubble could claim the same.

HD Supply Holdings, formerly part of Home Depot (HD), is the latest company with ties to the housing sector that plans to offer stock, according to a filing with SEC. Private equity firms Bain Capital Partners, Carlyle Group and Clayton, Dubilier & Rice, are HD Supply's primary owners. Home Depot has kept a stake of 12.5%.

For now, the size of the offering isn't set, but the company estimated the amount for the purpose of filing requirements at $1 billion. HD Supply listed sales of $8.04 billion for the fiscal year ended Feb. 3, 2013, with a loss of $1.18 billion. Total long-term debt outstanding on that date was $7.33 billion.

HD Supply is about construction broadly. It's not entirely a bet on housing, although that is a substantial part of what it does. As HD says in the risk factors section that's

Infosys (INFY) was making news for the wrong reasons Friday, with a discouraging outlook sending the stock reeling to one of the worst days in its history.

Recently, shares of the India-based IT consulting and outsourcing company were sinking 20.7% to $43.08 amid volume that was almost seven times heavier than an average day. Only a handful of stocks tracked by Yahoo! Finance data were getting hit harder anywhere in the U.S. market, while on the NYSE, it was the downside leader.

For Infosys, the selloff came after the company projected revenue growth of 6% to 10% for fiscal 2014. Infosys posted a top line of right under $7.4 billion in the year ended March 31. With that being the case, the forecast would imply sales of $7.84 billion to $8.14 billion for the year ahead. Even at the high end of that range, however, the results would fall short of the analyst consensus carried on FactSet, $8.32 billion, by almost $200 million.

Revenue in the just-completed fourth quarter was $1.94