McDonald’s slips after CFO calls U.S. consumer trends ‘challenging’

At the UBS Global Consumer and Retail Conference earlier this morning, McDonald’s CFO Ian Frederick Borden said that the company is currently seeing a “challenging consumer environment” in the U.S., as consumers are dealing with inflation that’s “kind of hitting their pocketbook across all the areas of spend.” Borden added that higher interest rates are also “having an impact,” and that “eroded COVID savings” that are “largely gone” are particularly hitting lower-income consumers. Additionally, the executive said that a lot of midsized markets in EUrope are continuing to perform “really, really well.” Shares of McDonald’s are down about 4% in afternoon trading.