The Rundown - McDonald’s Sales Surge, Kraft Heinz Pauses Split

Episode Date: February 12, 2026

Market update for Thursday February 12, 2026Check out the Public app for incredible investing tools and to support the show (LINK)Follow us on Instagram (@TheRundownDaily) for bonus content and instant reactions.In today’s episode:AI disruption concerns continue to pressure financial and software stocksMcDonald’s U.S. same-store sales jump 6.8%Kraft Heinz pauses its planned breakup and commits $600M to revive growthViking Therapeutics rallies as it advances its oral obesity pill to Phase 3 trialsCisco beats earnings but falls on margin pressure and cautious AI guidanceFun Fact: Americans are spending more of the workday sitting

Public.com presents the rundown. Your daily market update in under 10 minutes. My name is Zadadmani, and today is Thursday, February 12th. In today's episode, we'll recap earnings from McDonald's and tell you why the company just had its best growth in two years. We'll also dive into why Kraft Heinz is pausing their split. Then stick around to the end of the show to find out what percentage of the workday the average American is sitting.

We got a great show for you today. Let's go. Well, stocks didn't really do much on Wednesday. After getting an early boost in the morning from the Strong Jobs Report, the markets fizzled out with the S&P closing flat, while the NASDAQ dropped 0.2%. We broke down the hot job report numbers on yesterday's episode, so go check that out if you missed it.

You know, with the latest jobs report coming in strong, it probably means the Federal Reserve will wait to cut interest rates. Traders are now betting the next rate cut won't happen until June or July. Now, keep in mind, Jerome Powell's term as Fed chair ends in May, so it probably means that we won't be getting any more rate cuts in the Jerome Powell era. The next Fed meeting is about a month away, so there's a lot that could happen between now and then that can change the narrative. Now, going back to the stock market, it seems like the panic around AI disruption is still

the main story. Financial stocks got hammered again yesterday. Real estate stocks also took a beating, and software stocks were back to selling off. You know, I've said this before, but like six months ago, anytime there was a new AI breakthrough or announcement, it would cause stocks to rally, but now the exact opposite is happening. Now, looking beyond stocks, gold is quietly making a comeback. The price is back near $5,100 an ounce. Silver is back in the $80 range. And Bitcoin, it's still trading under $70,000, despite Michael Saylor buying more each week. Now, remember, the January CPI

inflation report drops tomorrow morning. That could be a big market moving event, depending on where it comes in. If inflation comes in high, then I think the odds of a rate cut drop even further. We'll break all that down on tomorrow's episode, so make sure you guys are subscribed to the podcast and tuning in every day to stay in the loop. Let's run through some headlines, starting with McDonald's. McDonald's reported earnings last night, and the numbers came in pretty strong. Both revenues and earnings beat estimates with global same store sales jumping 5.7%. The big bright spot was the U.S. business. Same store sales in the U.S.

surged 6.8% year over year, which is the fastest growth rate in more than two years. Traffic was up and people are spending more per visit. It turns out McDonald's focus on value and lowering prices is working to bring back customers. Now, McDonald's had been taking a lot of heat recently for rising prices and $18 Big Mac meals going viral. Well, over the last few months,

McDonald's brought back the $5 meal deal and leaned harder into promos. Turns out people like cheaper prices, and that brought back to customers. 2-4 sales also got a boost from holiday-themed promos like the Grinch Meal, which was a massive success. In fact, McDonald's had their highest sales day

ever because of it. So yeah, McDonald's is making a comeback because of cheaper prices. Who would have thought? Now, one thing to watch moving forward, the company did say that Q1 growth is probably going to slow down because of winter storms in late January

that kept people at home and forced some temporary closures. And I think that can be one. reason why the stock hasn't moved much in reaction to these great earnings. The company still plans to expand aggressively. They're planning to open 2,600 new locations this year, and they're also doubling down on beverages like more energy drinks, refreshers, and specialty sodas. Those items tend to be higher margin, and they have the potential to go viral as well. I wonder if other fast food places and restaurants will see McDonald's turnaround and success and also start lowering prices

themselves. Chipotle, if you're listening, think about it. Let's stick with the food theme here and talk about Kraft Heinz. Now, back in September, just a few months ago, this food giant announced plans to split up the company. The idea was to separate the faster growing brands like Heinz ketchup and Kraft Mac and Cheese from the slower legacy brands. Well, the company is now changing their mind and putting a pause on the split. The new CEO, Steve Kay-E-Lane, who literally joined the company in January to execute the split, now says that he can fix the existing company's problems without splitting it. The plan now is, is instead of breaking up the company, Kraft Hines is going to invest $600 million into marketing,

product development, and pricing strategies to try to get growth back on track. Looking at the numbers, Kraft Hines has been struggling for years. Sales have fallen for nine straight quarters. In Q4, revenues dropped 3.4%. And the company has been losing market share to up-and-coming brands that are more nimble and better at meeting consumer needs. Now, the new CEO says the company needs to earn back customer trust by actually offering better value and cutting prices. It just kind of sounds like what McDonald's just went through. I think the big

picture here is that some of these companies went too far on raising prices following the pandemic. They raised prices and they underinvested and that finally caught up to them. Consumers just stopped buying their stuff. So we'll see if this new strategy and focusing on value leads to the same turnaround and success that McDonald's is having. You know, Kraft Hein stock has dropped like 12% in the last 12 months and it's down over 70% from its peak back in 2017. Now, I do feel like 2017 was like the peak of mac and cheese. Let's talk about some stocks making moves today. Viking Therapeutics is surging this morning after announcing that they will take its obesity drug into late stage trials later this year.

She, last year, Viking ran a mid-stage study, and the results were mixed. Their pill helped patients lose 12.2% of their body weight, which is solid, but Wall Street was hoping for a 15% loss. So when that didn't happen, Viking stock dropped 40%. You know, it's classic biotech volatility. But Viking says that study supports its belief that a low-dose oral version can still be an effective long-term weight loss solution. So they're moving forward with late-stage trials and they plan to announce the results of that study in the third quarter. You know, the stakes are high here for Viking because the race for GLP1 pills is heating up fast. Nova Nordus was the first company to get approval for a weight loss pill.

Their wee-govy pill was already on the market and showing early. signs of success. In fact, 36% of early users of the WeGovie pill had never taken a GLP1 injection before. And that kind of shows you why these weight loss pills could be huge because they expand the market for people willing to take GLP1s. Eli Lilly is expected to get their pill approved by April. So yeah, Viking Therapeutics has a lot at stake here and investors are jumping in with shares up more than 10% this morning at the time of this recording. Now, on the flip side, Cisco stock is dropping despite the company beating earnings. Cisco makes network equipment like switches, routers and things to connect data centers, and revenues rose 10% in Q4 and net income jump

up 31%. But the stock is down around 9% this morning at the time of this recording because Q1 guidance was underwhelming and also Cisco's margins took a dip as well. The company has seen a recent surge thanks to the demand from AI data centers and they did generate $2.1 billion in AI infrastructure orders from hyperscalers, which shows that they're getting a piece of the AI buildout. Cisco also said that revenues from Neo-Cloud providers, you know, the AI-focused cloud companies should accelerate in the back half of the year. But I guess the market was expecting a faster AI ramp up, and as a result, Cisco stock is down this morning. Let's wrap the show with a fun fact. Americans are spending more time seated at work than at any point in nearly a decade.

In 2025, Americans spent 45% of the workday sitting up from 39% back in 2016. This is according to new data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. And not a surprise here, but the more you sit at work, the more money you probably make. White-collar jobs like software developers, investment analysts, accountants, they're all sitting more than 95% of the time at work, and they earn six figures a year. Meanwhile, you have fast food workers, waiters, construction workers, they're on their feet 90% of the time, and they earn way less. Now, there are exceptions, of course, like pharmacists,

they earn around $137,000 a year while only sitting 28% of the time. Nurses are another example. But overall, the trend is pretty clear. Desk jobs pay more, at least for now. I do wonder if this is still going to be the case in like 10, maybe 20 years. Everyone's talking about how AI is going to replace jobs, and obviously white-collar jobs are going to get replaced before blue-collar jobs. Now, AI can write software and do financial analysis.

they're probably not replacing construction workers and nurses anytime soon. Well, all right, guys, that's the rundown for today. Hope you guys enjoyed today's episode. If you did, and you have like five extra seconds, consider giving us a five-star rating on Apple, Spotify, YouTube, wherever you listen to your podcast. And if you are listening on Spotify, don't forget to vote into a Spotify poll. Leave us a comment on Spotify.

All that engagement really does help us out, and it helps other people find the show. Thank you, guys. much for listening, watching, and commenting. Shout out to Mike and Connor for all the work behind the scenes. And we'll see you guys back here tomorrow.