Poor uncle Warren. He better drink a lot more Coke Classic. He owns 400 million shares of Coke. He lost $1 billion yesterday on his 70 million shares of IBM. What a genius. The doddering old fool doesn’t see the death of consumer spending. He is so rich and disconnected from the real world, despite portraying a folksy uncle, that he hasn’t grasped that the middle class has been gutted by his buddies at the Federal Reserve and on Wall Street. They are the people drinking Coke and eating Big Macs. The average family is so stretched after seeing their real household income not grow since 1989, while their debt load has skyrocketed, they can no longer afford a lousy McDonald’s Happy Meal.
Coke and McDonalds were the poster children for the American consumer society. These are mega-corporations who generated $50 billion and $30 billion in revenues annually. They are in decline. They will not be revived, because the consumer is gutted and dead on the side of the financial superhighway. Keep believing the economic recovery storyline as companies selling stuff to consumers keep reporting shitty results. Only a blithering idiot, Warren Buffett or a CNBC bimbo would believe it.
Buffett the genius also owns millions of shares of Wal-Mart. Simply brilliant!!!
Coke profit falls as soda volumes remain flat
By Michael Calia
Published: Oct 21, 2014 7:50 a.m. ET
Coca-Cola Co. said its soda volumes were flat in the third quarter, while earnings and revenue both declined, hit by currency fluctuations.
The beverage unveiled a new cost-cutting plan, aiming to reduce $3 billion a year in costs by 2019, while also saying it intends to proceed with plans to refranchise the majority of its North American bottling territories by the end of 2017. The company had unveiled a three-year plan in February with the goal of cutting $1 billion in costs.
Shares declined nearly 4% premarket as revenue unexpectedly declined.
The company said its worldwide beverage volumes grew 1%, while soda volume was flat. Coke posted higher soda volumes in the second quarter after reporting its first decline since 1999 earlier this year.
Coke has pursued aggressive marketing tactics, along with restructuring, to lessen the impact of dwindling soda demand on its results. The company has also had to contend with headwinds from foreign currencies.
In further moves to fight the shrinking soda market, Coke has also sought partnerships with purveyors of other kinds of beverages. In August, the company said it would by a 16.7% stake in energy-drink producer Monster Beverage Corp. for $2.15 billion as part of an asset swap. It is also working on developing a cold beverage system with Keurig Green Mountain Inc.
Overall, the company posted earnings of $2.11 billion, or 48 cents a share, down from $2.45 billion, or 54 cents a share, a year earlier. Excluding items, per-share earnings were flat at 53 cents.
Revenue declined to $11.98 billion. Currency-neutral net revenue rose 1%.
Analysts surveyed by Thomson Reuters had projected 53 cents a share in earnings, with $12.12 billion in revenue.
McDonald’s shares drop after disappointing sales results
By Tomi Kilgore
Published: Oct 21, 2014 8:13 a.m. ET
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — Shares of McDonald’s MCD, +0.60% dropped 2% in premarket trade after the fast-food restaurant giant reported disappointing third-quarter revenue and same-store sales, and provided a downbeat outlook. Revenue fell to $6.99 billion from $7.32 billion a year ago, missing the average analyst estimate compiled by FactSet of $7.19 billion. Global same-store sales declined 3.3%, amid a 3.3% drop in U.S. sales, while analysts were projecting declines of 2.8% and 2.5%, respectively. Profit for the quarter fell to $1.07 billion, or $1.09 a share, from last year’s $1.52 billion, or $1.52 a share. The company said non-recurring items reduced net earnings per share by 42 cents. The FactSet consensus adjusted EPS forecast was $1.37. The internal and external challenges it faced during the third quarter “will continue into the fourth quarter, with global comparable sales for October expected to be negative,” said Chief Executive Dan Thompson. The stock has lost 5.6% year to date through Monday, compared with a 3% gain in the S&P 500.
He’s taking these losses for tax reasons?
He’ll just have the primary dealers pour fresh pomo’s declared or otherwise into the necessary cusips and whoosh, he’s back and suddenly old stodgy shit looks like the high beta junk of yesteryear. This fucker has got his head so far up the savior’s ass he can taste cherry coke all day long.
Don’t worry Bro-fet, I’ll just send you sum mo’ taxpayer cash.
McDonalds Sales Plunge In Worst Month Since 2003 Following Dollar Meal “Sticker Shock”
Submitted by Tyler Durden on 10/21/2014 09:24 -0400
Moments ago, McDonalds not only released earnings and revenues, both of which missed – something which was largely expected since the backward looking data had been telegraphed by MCD’s recent global selling collapse – blanketed by atrocious commentary, but it disclosed its September global retail sales which were for lack of a better word, a disaster, after reporting global sales which dropped 3.8%, below the 3.2% expected, and the worst global month since at least 2003. The pain was everywhere, with Europe plunging 4.2% (est -0.9%), Asia down 7.5%, and the US down a whopping 4.1%, far below the 2.8% expected, and also the worst month in over a decade.
In fact, McDonalds sales in the US have have now gone a whopping 11 months without posting a positive sales month, the longest stretch on record!
But while collapsing MCD sales are a combination of both the insolvent US consumer, who can no longer afford to buy either MCD or Coke (as we commented earlier) especially after purchasing the latest and greatest iThing on credit, as well as shifting tastes and eating the “cool food du jour”, things are only going to get worse from here.
Because in a world that is allegedly flooded with deflation, the one place where everyone considered safe for “dollar meals”, just got more expensive. Bloomberg reports:
Mike Hiner used to take his grandsons to McDonald’s (MCD) when they wanted a treat. With higher wage and food costs pushing up prices at the Golden Arches, he’s increasingly taking them to IHOP, Denny’s and Chili’s instead.
The loss of bargain-seeking customers like Hiner underscores a growing challenge for McDonald’s Corp.: While the company still offers several items for $1, its menu is quietly getting more expensive. McDonald’s said its prices were up about 3 percent through the end of June compared with 12 months earlier. That’s more than the 2.5 percent gain in prices for food Americans purchased away from their homes in the year through August, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The chain’s diminishing appeal among budget diners — coupled with rising meat costs — are projected to take a bite out of third-quarter earnings due to be reported tomorrow. Analysts estimate that McDonald’s revenue fell 1.8 percent to $7.2 billion in the period. Net income, which also were hurt by a food-safety scare in China, slid 11 percent to $1.36 billion, according to the projections.
And sure enough, see the charts above. But that is only the beginning:
Some Americans are extremely price sensitive, and any increases may send them elsewhere, said John Gordon, principal at San Diego-based Pacific Management Consulting Group, an adviser to restaurants and franchisees.
“If you encourage and kind of seed the notion that you can come in for a couple bucks and get some food — and then you can’t do that anymore — there’s bound to be a reaction,” he said.
There is also bound to be a reaction when the already broke US consumer maxes out their credit card on a telephone and forgets to eat.
The result has been that fast-food chains, long thought of as the cheapest place to grab a quick bite, may now have that reputation working against them, said Joel Cohen, president of Cohen Restaurant Marketing Group in Raleigh, North Carolina. The higher prices may be driving some customers to seek alternatives either at fast-casual chains like Panera Bread Co. (PNRA) or even at sit-down places, he said.
“It’s sticker shock,” Cohen said. “You’re up at price where you could just about be dining at a casual-dining restaurant.”
And when you hear the phrase “sticker shock” in the same sentence as a McDonalds dollar meal, you know the end is in sight.
Coke, Mcdonalds, IBM sales dropping is good for the stock market as a whole.
As evidenced by the rise in the Dow and NASDAQ.
What do humans know about picking stocks anyways?
oh…nooooo….Coke is our strength.
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UCSF Study Links Soda To Premature Aging, Disease, Early Death
The Monopoly game gimmick isn’t enough to draw in the great unwashed masses to buy pink slime burgers on credit?
When my parents were in a nursing home there were no obese inmates. I saw the same at other nursing homes, the obese had all died off. My High School class of ’54 had our 60th reunion a few weeks ago, none were obese. The obese were dead. Obesity is a dietary event. If you don’t eat you starve. When you starve the fat goes first, then the muscle and then the vital organs and you are dead. This is true of Companies. The claims for unemployment are going down because organizations are running out of people to make redundant.