In the stock analyst community they call this doing a "channel check", and it's intended to serve the exact purpose you're describing. They can get a feeling for how foot traffic might be trending or whether the shelves are looking picked over or barely touched. They can see if the clearance racks make up 1/2 of the sales floor, or just one rack way in the back. They can also tell if the food quality is suffering or if people are going crazy for the new high-margin offerings.

(GW and others that may read analyst reports probably know all this, just throwing it out there for education purposes so that you know what it is when you run across it in an article)

I much prefer my own judgement over that of 28 year old stock analysts. Largely because I don't know their ability to see the business through the eyes of the average target consumer. As a result, I would prefer to do my own "Channel Checks" and derive my own conclusions, just like Greg is describing.

People for the most part could care less about the food they eat. They want cheap and fast. MacDonalds isn't going anywhere. It should also be mentioned that they are a franchise and service likely varies greatly. My opinion is that an owner would have to completely mislead and manage a MacDonalds to fail in modern society.

My last experience with McDonalds food was not too good either, which had me questioning my stock ownership. However, one great thing about McDonalds that many people overlook is their real estate holdings. Most of their locations are prime retail locations that have significant value and most of the real estate is owned by the corporation.

BitCoin -- again....
 

Here we go with BitCoin again.....


http://www.washingtonpost.com/busine...523_story.html

This is exactly why I posted my post.... This thread is about learning -- and I wanted people to see what a "down side" learn might look like. They need to learn to trust their own judgement -- both UP and DOWN.... and perhaps learn to follow their own gut instincts some times.

Thanks for the input!


I always wonder if anyone reads the crap I post up.... :lol:

I'd say there's some hyperbole in that piece. The market is hardly in "disarray". It was steady a $127 and it dropped to $111.

The failure is solely that of Silk Road's admin, not Bitcoin itself.

I'm still a big fan of the peer to peer payment system. It's not perfect, but is pretty amazing.

I like this statement -- by a guy that has just LOST 500 MILLION dollars in a short on Herbalife stock...


“I have learned that the key to long-term investing is to balance confidence with the humility to recognize when the facts are no longer consistent with one’s original investment thesis”


There's a LOT to be learned in that simple statement.

It doesn't make any difference WHAT THE CAUSE IS.... when investing.... if someone has LOSSES regardless of the facts. The facts of this article is that there was at one point a 20% LOSS -- which later in the day ONLY resulted in a 10% (that's absolutely HUGE) loss.

A loss is a loss.

My point on BitCoin has been, and continues to be -- that it is NOT investing. It is GAMBLING based on the simple premise that you want to buy at one price and HOPE LIKE HELL that someone will pay you more than you paid. There is no product - there is no underlying value - other than you're hoping the price goes higher than what you paid. People aren't buying Bitcoins so they can go buy something with them. If that was the case the price would be very stable. Why would someone pay $127 for a bitcoin - to go buy something that costs $127? To top that off it's a very "thin" marketplace of people/businesses that will actually "accept" BitCoins for purchasing anything.

The "vehicle" has become nothing more than a trading platform of trying to buy low and sell high without the underlying paper trail for taxes/accountability etc.

Im really not concerned with MCD or KO.
When the economy went down, they kept growing. Not many stocks that can claim that and pay a good dividend.

Where else can you get a burger and coke for $1 each.

I agree Bitcoin is NOT an investment...so any losses in that regard are moot. (BTW it's back up to $117 now) so no "disarray". One clown running a shoddy website into the ground is not going to drag down and spook out BTC users.

Its a medium of exchange and has its place, and obvious value for the service. Maybe not to you, but to a large pool of other people.