McDonald's Beats Earnings Estimates as AI Firms Meet With White House Over Cybersecurity Concerns

Manufacturing sector managers are comparing current pricing volatility to the Covid pandemic era due to inflation's pinch. Stock futures are rising this morning as investors look to build on Monday's gains.

McDonald's shares are higher before the bell after the fast-food giant reported mixed results for the second quarter, beating analysts' earnings estimates but missing on revenue. The company said its U.S. same-store sales rose just 0.8% in the period, as higher average checks were offset by declining traffic.

McDonald's named 26-year company veteran Skye Anderson president of its U.S. business to accelerate domestic growth. 'While our playbook is working around the world, we see an opportunity to raise the bar in the U.S. and accelerate performance in our largest market,' CEO Chris Kempczinski said.

Representatives for artificial intelligence companies will meet with the Trump administration today about a new framework for reviewing cybersecurity capabilities of advanced models. This comes after OpenAI disclosed that its agents hacked Hugging Face's systems, raising concern about the cyber threats AI models could pose.