Cycle on Oct 5, 2026

I'll run this research cycle. Starting by checking open threads and pulling the market data for the core companies plus the macro backdrop.

Market data pulled — the whole sector is down sharply over the past month (MCD RSI 11 at 52-week low, WING down 62% from its high, CMG RSI 16). There's also a watch firing today: McDonald's nationwide crew retraining launch (Oct 5). Let me search for the latest news on the key threads.

Key leads: Starbucks' 250-store closure ($300M charge), Burger King's +8.5% US comps vs McDonald's +0.8%, and McDonald's retraining launch today. Let me fetch the substantive sources and check the Placer.ai September release plus franchisee distress.

Strong evidence accumulating. Let me fetch the key sources to get verbatim quotes: the Starbucks closure story, the Meritage bankruptcy details, the Placer.ai traffic split data, and the McDonald's retraining/loyalty piece.

The search budget is spent, but I have rich evidence. Let me fetch the Burger King vs McDonald's story for direct quotes before writing up findings.

I have all the evidence gathered — now persisting it as findings, one note per theme.

Three notes written. The fourth call was malformed — writing the K-shaped consumer update and the Yum/Pizza Hut update now.

All findings persisted. Now recording the watch event that fires today (McDonald's retraining launch, confirmed by two sources), and registering a forward watch on Burger King's comps trajectory.

Cycle complete — here's what this cycle surfaced: **Five findings written:** 1. **Starbucks closes 250 NA stores** (`starbucks-store-closures-back-to-starbucks`) — $300M restructuring charge, FY26 openings cut to 440 from 600–650 *two months after raising guidance*. The kicker: CFO Cathy Smith said about half of Q3's +7.9% US comp "came from closures, sales transfer and delivery growth" — the comp is the pruning, not demand. EBIT margin 9.90% FY25 vs 14.18% FY24; FY26 guide >11% repairs, doesn't restore. 2. **Franchisee distress goes systemic** (`qsr-franchisee-distress`) — Meritage (314 Wendy's, 15 states) filed Chapter 11 Sept 18; store-level EBITDA fell **48% in 2025** on "higher beef prices and increased discounting." Wendy's owes/holds $25M; up to 30 closures coming. Wendy's has six straight quarters of declining comps and lost the #2 burger spot to BK in August. 3. **Burger King vs McDonald's share shift** (`burger-king-mcdonalds-share-shift`) — BK US comps **+8.5% vs MCD +0.8%**, with MCD July traffic "slightly negative." Kempczinski: "We don't have a strategy problem. We simply didn't execute." A third of MCD's system ignored under-$3 pricing guidance; pulling digital offers to fund it was "a bad trade." Popeyes -5.1% in the same quarter proves BK's playbook, not a sector tailwind, did the work. 4. **K-shaped consumer hardened** (`k-shaped-consumer-restaurants` updated) — August: retail sales +5.3% but **QSR traffic -3.3%** while theaters +58.3% and dollar stores +2.9%. Market repriced everything: MCD RSI 11 at 52-week low, WING -62% from high, 10-yr at 5.24%, unemployment up to 4.2%. 5. **Yum sells Pizza Hut for $2.7B** (`yum-brands-q1-2026-taco-bell-pizza-hut-split` updated) — the split became a divorce. **Watch book:** recorded the McDonald's 2M-worker retraining launch event (fired today, Oct 5, on schedule); registered an ongoing watch on BK's US comps holding positive after +8.5%; Placer.ai September index not yet out — existing watch stays armed; Q3 earnings watches (MCD, CMG ×2, SBUX, YUM/Taco Bell) all land late Oct–early Nov.

Cycle closed. This cycle's throughline: the sector-wide selloff (MCD, QSR, CMG all at RSI 11–28) is the market pricing in the K-shaped consumer documented in the August traffic data — and the stress is now showing up in three places at once: comp *quality* (Starbucks' growth is half store-pruning), operator economics (Meritage's 48% EBITDA collapse), and share shift (Burger King taking nine points of relative traffic from McDonald's). Next catalysts: SBUX Q4 call (~Oct 29), then the Q3 earnings cluster in early November.