What's going on?

Investors were pleased to get their teeth into the latest set of McDonald�s results on Monday. The burger barons went large in their first quarter � boosting the stock by 5%.

What does this mean?

The McDonald�s turnaround strategy from 2015 is still paying dividends for the company, smashing market estimates for sales and profits. While McDonald�s has been hitting headlines for pushing new cheaper products that appeal to customers� pockets (like the saver menu), it�s also been beefing up (literally) its more expensive, deluxe options for the more discerning burger connoisseur. This helped global sales of food and drink at all McDonald�s restaurants to increase by 5.5% last quarter. And they also saw an almost 1% increase in foot traffic compared to this time last year!

Why should I care?

For markets: Investors are loving it.

While the results were a bit of a mouthful for investors to digest, they were likely pretty tasty, with the company hailing growth in the UK and Germany as particularly strong. Overall revenues actually decreased in the quarter, as a greater share of restaurants are now franchised rather than directly owned. That means a lower but more stable income, as McDonald�s gets paid in royalties and rent, instead of just income from food sales. Even so, the fall in revenue was smaller than expected. And all in all, the new strategy seems to be bearing fruit (as well as selling more of it): McDonald�s stock is up almost 70% in the last three years. [tweet this]

The bigger picture: How about a burger for McYou?

McDonald�s is improving personalization in terms of how customers order and receive their food. It�s made big investments in technology � like mobile ordering and payment, self-service kiosks and delivery partnerships with Deliveroo and Uber Eats. But with so many options and combinations, store staff are struggling to cope � and as some stressed staff quit, bringing in lots of rookie replacements could impact customer service and, ultimately, growth.