The company’s restaurants offer hamburgers and cheeseburgers, chicken sandwiches and nuggets, wraps, fries, salads, oatmeal, shakes, desserts, sundaes, soft serve cones, bakery items, soft drinks, coffee, and other beverages, as well as a breakfast menu, including biscuit and bagel sandwiches, breakfast burritos, hotcakes and other sandwiches. As of December 31, 2021, the company operated 40,031 restaurants.
McDonald’s second-quarter earnings per share jumped a strong 19% year over year and was above consensus estimates. Revenue was 10% higher to $5.67 billion, also topping forecasts. In addition, same-store-sales, which is a huge metric for the company, rose 11.8%. While that number represented a big drop from prior quarters, it was much better than gloomy Wall Street expectations.
The dividend yield here is 2.17%. McDonald’s stock has a Wall Street-leading $300 target price at BMO Capital Markets. The consensus target is $282.88. The final trade for Monday was reported at $257.01.
Merck
This remains a leading health care stock for conservative investors. Merck & Co. Inc. (NYSE: MRK) operates as a health care company worldwide. It operates through the following two segments.
The Pharmaceutical segment offers human health pharmaceutical products in the areas of oncology, hospital acute care, immunology, neuroscience, virology, cardiovascular and diabetes, as well as vaccine products, such as preventive pediatric, adolescent and adult vaccines.
The Animal Health segment discovers, develops, manufactures and markets veterinary pharmaceuticals, vaccines and health management solutions and services, as well as digitally connected identification, traceability and monitoring products.
Merck serves drug wholesalers and retailers, hospitals and government agencies; managed health care providers, such as health maintenance organizations, pharmacy benefit managers and other institutions; and physicians and physician distributors, veterinarians and animal producers. The company has collaborations with AstraZeneca, Bayer, Eisai, Ridgeback Biotherapeutics and Gilead Sciences.
Investors receive a 3.15% dividend. The SVB Leerink target price is $109. Analysts have a consensus target of $100.85. Monday’s closing print for Merck stock was $86.64.
All seven of the companies have reasonable upside to the Wall Street targets, and they all pay very dependable dividends. With even moderate appreciation in the share prices of these top companies, investors should be looking at double-digit total return potential. In a market that is very volatile, and could be much headed lower as we are in a recession, these safe stocks make a ton of sense now.
Originally posted at 24/7 Wall St.
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