MCD - McDonald's Corporation

Lab-grown meat producer Memphis Meats raises $161 mln in funding led by SoftBank

IBM, Intel share gains lead Dow's 100-point climb

DOW UPDATE Shares of IBM and Intel are seeing strong returns Wednesday morning, propelling the Dow Jones Industrial Average into positive territory. The Dow (DJIA) was most recently trading 108 points (0.

Chicken Sandwich Proxy Battle Playing Out Over MSG Use

McDonald's Corp (NYSE: MCD ) is testing a new chicken sandwich across three states and the National Owners Association is urging McDonald's franchise owners not to "get distracted" with inaccurate ...

McDonald's launches employee education app, Archways to Careers

McDonald's Corp. said Wednesday that it has launched an app that will help its employees take full advantage of the education benefits the fast-food giant offers. Archways to Careers will serve as a career advising tool that will connect workers with professionals at InsideTrack, a McDonald's partner and coaching organization. The app builds on the Archways to Opportunity program that helps workers learn English language skills, get a high school diploma and provides financial aid for college tuition. McDonald's stock has gained 14.4% over the past year while the Dow Jones Industrial Average is up 19.6% for the period.

Beyond Meat stock rallies after Starbucks announces plans for plant-based menu additions

Beyond Meat Inc. stock jumped 15% in Tuesday trading after news from Starbucks Corp. Chief Executive Kevin Johnson that the coffee giant aims to add more plant-based items to its menu. Starbucks stock is nearly unchanged in early trading. Beyond Meat is currently in testing mode with another restaurant giant, McDonald's Corp. , and just announced a supply agreement with pea-protein producer Roquette, which the company said will aid in further scaling of the business. Beyond Meat stock is up 13.6% over the last three months while the S&P 500 index is up 10.7% for the period.

Wells Fargo Analyst Says Beyond Meat's Stock Has Downside To $72

Beyond Meat Inc's (NASDAQ: BYND ) stock has downside potential of more than 30%, Wells Fargo analyst John Baumgartner said Thursday in a CNBC interview . Beyond Meat's stock recently moved north of $100 ...

Beyond Meat Stock Drops Because an Analyst Says It’s Gotten Too Expensive

Bernstein analyst Alexia Howard downgraded Beyond shares from the equivalent of Buy to Hold because of valuation concerns.

Beyond Meat downgraded as analysts say stock price already accounts for U.S. growth potential

Beyond Meat Inc. was downgraded to market perform from outperform at Bernstein as analysts believe the current stock price accounts for the plant-based meat company's U.S. growth potential. Bernstein maintained its $106 target price. Beyond Meat shares fell 4.4% in Wednesday premarket trading after closing Tuesday up 2.4% at $117.05. Beyond Meat stock is down 4.1% over the past three months while the benchmark S&P 500 index has gained 9.6%. Bernstein analysts led by Alexia Howard note that shares rallied after news of a Canadian test of the P.L.T. burger (plant, lettuce, tomato) with McDonald's Corp. . If the burger is rolled out in the U.S., Bernstein expects that Beyond Meat will grow its sales to $910 million in fiscal 2021 from $280 million in fiscal 2019, "which will likely test the high end of Beyond Meat's capacity based on its current capacity expansion plans in the U.S., although further capacity expansion could unlock additional upside in the top line." Beyond Meat and Roquette, a plant-protein producer, announced a multi-year pea protein supply agreement on Tuesday. Bernstein thinks there's upside to the Beyond Meat stock should the company expand abroad, with big growth potential in Europe.

U.S. Recommends No Jail Time for Flash Crash Trader

(Bloomberg) -- Navinder Singh Sarao, the British trader blamed for helping cause the 2010 Flash Crash from his bedroom, should serve no additional jail time, U.S. authorities said in a recommendation before his Jan. 28 sentencing in Chicago.The government cited Sarao’s “extraordinary cooperation,” his autism diagnosis and the fact that he lost most of the 45 million pounds ($58.5 million) he made trading to fraudsters, according to a memo filed with the court Tuesday. He spent four months in a London jail, and the Justice Department said an additional term term wouldn’t deter other traders, and would pose serious risks to the 41-year-old’s mental health.“For the foregoing reasons, the government respectfully recommends that this court depart significantly below the advisory sentencing guidelines range,” prosecutor Michael O’Neill wrote. “Specifically, the government agrees with the probation officer and the defendant that a sentence of time served would be appropriate.”The U.K. citizen was arrested in 2015 for contributing to the volatility of May 6, 2010, when markets dropped 5% in a 5-minute period, earning him the moniker the ‘Flash Crash Trader.’ For five years starting in 2009, he spoofed U.S. futures markets, including using a software program he designed himself called the NAVTRader. He was extradited to the U.S. where he pleaded guilty in November 2016 to spoofing and wire fraud.Since then, Sarao has been working with the government on building cases against other market cheats. Unusually, he was allowed to return to the U.K. during his cooperation. He spent days with prosecutors in London, going through videos he’d made and schooling the CFTC, the DOJ and the FBI on the world of high-frequency trading and how to identify market cheats.Spoofing involves placing and then quickly canceling orders in a bid to deceive other traders about supply and demand and therefore hopefully move the market.“The defendant’s keen insights and explanations regarding both general and specific patterns of deceptive and manipulative trading have illuminated the government’s understanding of similar spoofing,” O’Neill wrote. “As a result, he has substantially assisted and informed the government’s nationwide efforts to detect, investigate, and prosecute these crimes.”Last year, he also testified against his former programmer, Jitesh Thakkar, who was charged with conspiring with Sarao to spoof the market. Thakkar was acquitted at trial.Beyond his cooperation, the government pointed to the fact that Sarao barely touched the money he made as further reason to treat him leniently.“The defendant clearly was not motivated by money, greed, or any desire for a lavish lifestyle,” O’Neill said. “His only significant purchase was a 5,000 pound car. Of his remaining trading profits, the defendant lost over 40 million pounds to three apparently fraudulent investment schemes.”Sarao continues to live in his parents’ house in the London suburb of Hounslow, where he sleeps “in a child-like bedroom that includes multiple stuffed animals” and “uses coupons to buy food at McDonald’s,” the Justice Department wrote. He has been diagnosed with autism, which a psychologist described as “both a disability...and a talent.”The final decision on Sarao’s sentencing will be made Jan. 28 by the judge presiding over the case in Chicago. The government originally recommended a custodial sentence of between 78 and 97 months.To contact the reporter on this story: Liam Vaughan in London at lvaughan6@bloomberg.netTo contact the editors responsible for this story: Christopher Elser at celser@bloomberg.net, Ambereen ChoudhuryFor more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.

Who’s Your Boss? Team Trump Has a Clear New Answer

(Bloomberg Opinion) -- If you’re a typical wage earner, then your employer is obligated to pay you at least the federal minimum wage, along with overtime if you work beyond 40 hours in a given week. But who is your employer? On Sunday, the administration of President Donald Trump brought a common-sense answer to this important and, surprisingly, unresolved question.Determining who is liable for violations of employment law is more complicated than it may seem. Take a cashier at, say, an independent McDonald’s franchise. Certainly she works for the franchised restaurant. But does she also work for McDonald’s, the national brand? What responsibility does McDonald’s Corp. have for her?The waters are similarly murky for an employee of a staffing agency or a contractor who is assigned to a business, like a security officer who is assigned to a law firm. If the guard is owed overtime but doesn’t receive it, who should be held accountable? The agency? The law firm? Both?These issues have grown in importance as companies increasingly contract with outside firms for many services and functions that would once have been taken care of in-house. At large employers, it is now common for building maintenance, security, kitchen, laundry and custodial staff not to work directly for the company they report to each day. Today, it is even common for hotel rooms to be cleaned by employees of temporary staffing agencies. The same goes for the workers who load trucks at retail distribution centers. This remains true as well for activities that have long been outsourced, like payroll and accounting services.This creates complications for the enforcement of employment law, because what workers actually do on the job — their schedules, the quality standards they are expected to meet, the procedures the need to follow — is often determined by their indirect employer, even though they are direct employees of a staffing agency or a franchise.How much responsibility do indirect employers have for compliance with employment regulations? The uncertainty around this question has been a burden for businesses, creating compliance costs and duplicate record keeping. It has exposed national brands and businesses that hire contractors to litigation when employment regulations are violated, and in other instances.Now the Trump administration has adopted a four-factor test to assess whether an indirect employer is a joint employer that would bear legal responsibility for violations of minimum-wage and overtime regulations. Take the example of McDonald’s and an independent franchise. McDonald’s would be deemed a joint employer if it hires or fires employees of the local franchise; supervises and controls employees’ work schedule or other conditions of employment to a substantial degree; determines employees’ pay; and maintains workers’ employment records.Typically, a company would have to meet some or all of these criteria to be liable for wage and hours violations.This is a narrower standard for determining joint-employer status than the practice that existed under the administration of President Barack Obama, which expanded the responsibilities of indirect employers in January 2016. The International Franchise Association (the largest organization representing franchises worldwide) argues that the broader criteria previously in place cost U.S. franchisees between $17 and $33 billion per year.The new rules — which will affect the behavior of workers and employers, and will influence court decisions — are a victory for common sense. They more clearly define the roles and responsibilities of different parties, which will make it easier for them to work together productively and efficiently. Indirect employers will know what steps to take to avoid legal liability and compliance costs and record-keeping costs. National brands will be shielded from litigation over employment issues in local franchises they could not control. Court decisions will become more uniform, which will help businesses. By reducing compliance costs, employers in the low-wage labor market will have more resources to grow their businesses.Sunday’s Department of Labor guidance is limited to regulations under the Fair Labor Standards Act, a landmark piece of New Deal legislation that determines rules about wages and hours of work and prohibits child labor. It is part of a broader conversation about joint-employer status. The National Labor Relations Board, the government agency responsible for enforcing collective-bargaining laws, is expected to issue a similar rule in the next few weeks, reversing Obama-era policy that made it easier for contractors and workers in franchised businesses to unionize.These are welcome developments that will, on balance, accrue to the benefit of workers in the low-wage labor market. But it is important to point out that violations of labor law are all too common. A 2017 report by the Economic Policy Institute, a progressive think tank, found that low-wage workers lose billions of dollars per year due to minimum-wage violations alone. Still, the best solution is better enforcement of labor law, not muddying roles and responsibilities in economic relationships.The Trump administration touts deregulation as one of its major accomplishments. These claims can be overblown. But this guidance is a feather in its cap.To contact the author of this story: Michael R. Strain at mstrain4@bloomberg.netTo contact the editor responsible for this story: Jonathan Landman at jlandman4@bloomberg.netThis column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of Bloomberg LP and its owners.Michael R. Strain is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist. He is director of economic policy studies and resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. He is the editor of “The U.S. Labor Market: Questions and Challenges for Public Policy.”For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.com/opinionSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2020 Bloomberg L.P.