Trending tickers: McDonald's, Tesla, Starbucks, L'Oréal and Barratt Redrow

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McDonald's Corporation (MCD)

Shares in fast food giant McDonald's slid 6% in pre-market trading on Wednesday after after the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said the company's quarter pounder burgers had been linked to an E. coli outbreak in some US states.

"This is a fast-moving outbreak investigation," the CDC wrote on its website. "Most sick people are reporting eating Quarter Pounder hamburgers from McDonald’s and investigators are working quickly to confirm which food ingredient is contaminated."

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The CDC said McDonald’s has stopped using fresh slivered onions and quarter-pound beef patties in certain states while a source of the illness is confirmed.

One person has died from the outbreak, the agency said, and 10 hospitalisations have been reported across 10 states.

McDonald's chief supply chain officer of North America Cesar Piña said in an internal memo shared on the company's website on Tuesday evening that it was taking "swift and decisive action" and noted that the initial findings from the investigation "indicate that a subset of illnesses may be linked to slivered onions used in the Quarter Pounder and sourced by a single supplier that serves three distribution centers."

Tesla (TSLA)

Electric carmaker Tesla saw little movement in pre-market trading on Wednesday morning, ahead of the release of the company's third-quarter earnings later in the day.

Investor attention is is particularly focused on this report, as the stock slumped after Tesla's recent robotaxi event.

However, recently released figures showed that Tesla's deliveries were up 6% for the third quarter.

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AJ Bell's Russ Mould, Danni Hewson and Dan Coatsworth said that this had that this "understandably led analysts to expect better again for the third quarter" results more broadly.

They said analysts were expecting sales to come in at $25.5bn (£19.6bn) for the third quarter, which would be 9% higher than a year ago.

Analysts are also said to be expecting to see further improvement in earnings per share (EPS) of $0.57 in the third-quarter, which would mean a return to year-on-year growth.

Starbucks (SBUX)

Shares in Starbucks fell 5% in pre-market trading on Wednesday, after the company reported declines in revenue and earnings in its preliminary results, and suspended its full-year guidance.