McDonald's Corporation (NYSE: MCD) stock has been upgraded to ‘buy’ by Jefferies with analyst Andy Barish describing the fast-food chain as being “well-positioned in the current environment”.
Jefferies set a new price target of US$200 per share, up from US$150, suggesting some 16% to the current McDonald’s price of US$173.
“The transformation of McDonald’s ownership (refranchising), and use of data and technology (digital/delivery/EOTF) should attract a higher multiple over time, while leading to higher returns,” Barish said in a note.
The analyst added: “We have increasing confidence in our views on the brand given our proprietary work on social media reviews using Merchant Centric data (location specific user-generated review analytics), as detailed in this report.”