Category Archives: Consumerism

McDonald’s Is Yummier Than Yum Brands!

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Yum Brands, Inc runs fast food restaurants such as Kentucky Fried chicken, Taco Bell, Pizza Hut and A&W All-American Food Restaurants Brand. They have about 37,000 restaurants are in 110 countries. The company is growing especially in China and developing countries.

Analysts were concerned that with the greater unemployment and economic constraints would cause people to abandon the fast food chains. This is to some extent true; however it is so much a part of modern life to travel and to grab meals along the way that it continues even during hard times.

Over the last year the stock has gone up from $46 to $54 per share. The stock has a 50 day moving average of $52.12. It’s dividend yield is 2.2 percent or about $1.20. The return on equity ratio is 79.19%. It has a high debt to equity ratio of 174.19. Revenue growth in the last quarter was 9.4%.

Its chief competitor is McDonald’s Corp whose stock has been steadily rising for the last five years. It has risen from $40 to $90 and is still going strong. It’s a real powerhouse and from an investment perspective its is better than Yum.

Ross Stores Offer Amazing Clothing Prices And Amazing Stock Performance.

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Ross Stores, Inc. operates apparel and home accessories retail stores which offer 20-60 percent discounts off other stores’ ordinary prices. Ross stores have two chains: the first is Ross Dress for Less and the second is dds Discounts. Ross operates 1055 stores in 27 states and in Guam. Ross Dress for less caters to middle income families and dds Discounts caters more to moderate income families.

Ross buys benefits from the over supplies in the ordinary retail channels and buys quality clothing, footwear and accessories at discount prices. The recessionary economy could lead to an oversupply of inventory in regular stores and a larger quantity of merchandise and better discounts for Ross.

Ross’s stock price has risen over the last two years from $40 to $80 per share. The stock has risen relatively steadily without tremendous ups and downs along the way. Of course, part of the reason that this company succeeding so well is due to the country’s economic problems. More people need better bargains on regular staples. Ross stores supplies the goods.

One of the management staff is Lisa Panattoni, Executive VP of Merchandising which is one of the most important functions of the company. Mark LeHocky is the General Counsel and the Corporate Secretary. In addition to legal counsel for Ross, he was previously the General Counsel for Dreyer’s Ice Cream, Inc. Prior to that he was a principle in the law partnership of Freeland Cooper LeHocky & Hamburg.

Herbalife Is Also Financial Life

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We’ve all heard of the Herbalife (HLF) and may have even considered selling Herbalife products. It is obviously a large company but in examining the figures it is amazing. The company sells personal care and nutrition products throughout the world. They have 1.9 million distributors around the world. Their net income after taxes from the second quarter was over $111 million dollars and their net income has risen steadily over the last four quarters.

Their stock has also been steadily rising over the last two years and paying a dividend every quarter. Due to the increasing quarterly income it looks like this company’s stock should continue to go up.

The management team includes: Michael O. Johnson, Chairman and CEO; Brett R. Chapman, General Counsel; Des Walsh, President; Richard P. Goudis, COO; John DeSimone, CFO; and Y. Steve Henig, Ph.D., CSO (Chief Scientific Officer). the company is well run and all of the management have many years of experience, generally either in their specialty or in the MLM industry.

Can Consumers Keep Buying

Consumerism,

Consumer Confidence PlungesTwo contradictory reports seem to confuse the markets this past week.  One showed that consumer confidence is way down, yet the other showed July retail sales jumping 0.5 %. The second report seem to shine a ray of hope on the abysmal state of the US economy, yet this ray of hope is nothing more than an illusion.  Sales are up despite a lack of money and jobs, because the human psyche especially in America is to spend money when you don’t have it in order to feel like you have money.  This has always been the case.  At first consumers tighten up and then they let loose a little in order reconfirm their “stability.”

Consumer “malaise shopping” coupled with the vacation season has created an illusory statistic.  If retail sales were truly expressing a positive trend then consumer confidence wouldn’t have plunged to 54.9 from 63.7 in July, the lowest its been in 3 decades.  If consumer confidence remains low then relying consumers to lift retail numbers in the future seems to be a poor strategy to rely on.

McDonald’s Makes Modifications

Consumerism,

It seems like McDonald’s has finally caved in to pressure.  The word on the street throughout the western world has changed from enjoying every morsel one eats no matter how unhealthy it is, to fighting obesity with every bone in our bodies.  McDonald’s has pretty much had no choice but to chime in and has done so in a very dignified way with its new Happy Meal, due out this coming September.

The portion of French fries will be significantly smaller, but will be supplemented by a quarter cup of apple slices. The apple slice addition has sort of been offered recently.  But it was called Apple Dippers as it came alongside a caramel dip.  The dip will be discarded in the new meal. Still in the Happy Meal will be the choice of cheeseburger, Chicken McNuggets or hamburger but the new meal beverage choice will include fat-free chocolate milk and 1 percent low-fat milk.

By the first quarter of 2012, McDonald’s hopes these happy meals will be available in all its 14,000 restaurants around America.  There are more goals ahead.  According to an article in AdAge, in the next nine years, McDonalds is going to be putting in significantly less sugar, fat and calories via “varied portion sizes and what the company called reformulations.”  Indeed, already the foods offered made from chicken have undergone a 10 percent decrease in sodium and by 2015, the company hopes its sodium in general goes down by 15 percent.

On average, these changes will result in a 20 percent calorie reduction of the chain’s “most popular” Happy Meals.  This is a huge change since Happy Meals comprise 10 percent of all of the chain’s orders.