Adios my friends...

This has been an interesting project as I had read very few blogs and had never even considered blogging myself.  However, I'v enjoyed it (for the most part) and have learned several things along the way.  I hope that you have learned something yourself over the past 15 weeks.

If you remember from my first blog, I chose McDonald's because I had worked there through the summers of my undergrad days (over 16 years ago).  I enjoyed my summers at McDonald's and think I would enjoy working for the McDonald's Corporation now.  However, I say that as I am envisioning myself working in the corporate office, not in the restaurant itself as I do not think I would handle customer complaints as well as I used to.  It does however, appear to be a good company to work for, with good benefits and promotion opportunities, and it has definitely earned good profits of late.  For instance, if you had invested $1,000 in MCD stock on 9/1/10 you would have purchased 13 shares of stock as the 9/1 stock price was $74.54 per share.  As of today your stock would be worth $1,031.94 as MCD closed today at $79.38.

http://www.google.com/finance?q=mcd

This gives you a net increase of $31.94 or a 3.194% return.  I would not be very happy with this return on investment as I could earn that in CDs.  However, MCD has paid high dividends to its' investors over the year and are expected to do so again at the end of 2010, so for a large stakeholder it will pay to own MCD stock.

Thanks for listening this semester.  I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.  God Bless and good luck with your future studies.

Hmmm... Most Interesting Thing...

The most interesting thing I learned about McDonald's this semester is the fact that Mickey D's had acquired Donato's Pizza and Boston Market.  That's right, back in 1999 & 2000.  Now, mind you, they have since divested these acquisitions, but until this class I never knew they ever had attempted to diversify.  In case you missed it, you can see the complete information surrounding these acquisitions and divestitures by referring to my blog posting on October 16th.

The next most interesting thing I learned was how well the stock price has been performing in the past year.  Take today for instance, MCD closed today at $79.29 up $0.99 (or 1.26%).

http://www.google.com/finance?q=mcd

One last JUST FOR FUN FACT:

If McDonald's meat quality is so high, why is it so cheap?

Because McDonald's serves so many people each day, it is able to buy in bulk and then pass along the value to you. This enables McDonald's to offer its' customers the best prices on the freshest, highest quality products.

http://www.aboutmcdonalds.com/mcd/students/faq_for_students.html#11

Hope you enjoyed the fun facts.  I hope to post my final blog tomorrow!