BusinessThe Street•6 hours agoMcDonald's Has a Restaurant in Poland That Looks Like the Future of the Golden Arches
McDonald's Corp. (MCD) restaurants of the future are almost unrecognizable. In Tuesday's conference call, McDonald's President, CEO and Director Stephen J. Easterbrook said its Polish eateries provide a look at the company's plans for the future. Easterbrook called the eastern European nation McDonald's "incubator market," since its restaurants there have adopted all aspects of the fast-food chain's "Experience of the Future," or EOTF at once. "Experience of the Future, or EOTF, as we call it, fundamentally changes the way customers interact with our brands," Easterbook said in the call. "We're providing an experience that is more personal and less stressful, matching our best people with technology
BusinessThe Street•2 hours agoHow Do I Hate Thee, Amazon? Let Me Count the Ways
I saw little that looked encouraging in the second-quarter report that Amazon (AMZN) released after the bell Thursday. While I'm mindful of the stock's "cult status," all of the fundamentals and valuation figures that I'm seeing point to selling the stock. For instance: While North American e-commerce sales accelerated 26.5%, Amazon Web Services saw its gains slow to 42%. After all, the cloud sector is beginning to get crowded thanks to Alphabet (GOOG) , (GOOGL) , Microsoft (MSFT) and others. Amazon Web Services saw its EBITD margin decline quarter over quarter, something that probably won't please tech investors (who normally disdain margin compression). AMZN's total sales rose $7.5 billion
- BusinessMarketWatch•yesterday
It’s harder than you think to spend down your 401(k) account in retirement
At a recent conference, retirement experts concluded that the lack of an easy drawdown mechanism in 401(k) plans was the major challenge facing the 401(k) system. In 2014, the Treasury Department and the IRS issued guidance that made longevity annuities accessible to 401(k) plans and that enabled target date funds to include annuity contracts either as a default or as a regular investment option. But individual plan sponsors feel under siege by lawsuits and see little payoff to being innovative. At the same time, Congress is unlikely to mandate that annuities be a part of 401(k) arrangements. So we are at a standstill. Millions of Americans — having been told that their retirement plans are automatic
