Burger King (BKC), which competes for the attention of fast-food junkies along with McDonald's (MCD), Wendy's/Arby's Group (WEN), and Yum! Brands (YUM), didn't do too badly when it came to bottom-line growth in the second quarter. Same-store sales, on the other hand, could have used a little assistance.

Earnings per share calculated out to 37 cents. That was good for a 12% increase. Great to see double-digit appreciation. However, domestic comps went down 3.3%, while total comps were off by 2%. The same-store sales metric is a very important indicator of the overall health of a business that has many locations.

Yum! Brands (YUM), whose colleagues include McDonald's (MCD), Burger King (BKC), and Wendy's/Arby's Group (WEN), sold off this afternoon as the market digested the fourth-quarter earnings news that was released on Wednesday after the bell. I will say, even though this report wasn't a complete disaster, it also wasn't the most exciting document I've ever read.

Sales went down 1%, and earnings per share on an adjusted basis increased 7% to 50 cents. Earnings.com says 48 cents per share was the desired figure. Same-store sales in the United States decreased 8%.

Despite last week's announcement that Wendy's/Arby's Group Inc. (WEN) would withdraw from Japan, the third largest burger chain in the U.S. isn't ready to give up on Asia altogether.

Food service management company Kopitiam Group will be bringing the Wendy's fast food chain back to Singapore after an absence of more than 10 years. The group plans to open 35 Wendy's branches in Singapore over the next decade.

Despite some very tame inflation reports, the housing data was deemed as a disappointment. Investors used today's early strength to sell stocks to lock in profits or to take at least some money off the table. Of the five DJIA components which reported earnings, the pre-earnings gains were astounding on most of them.

Here were today's unofficial closing bell levels:

Dow 10,041.48 -50.71 (-0.50%)
S&P 500 1,091.07 -6.84 (-0.62%)
Nasdaq 2,163.47 -12.85 (-0.59%)

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Yum! Brands (NYSE: YUM), which competes with McDonald's (NYSE: MCD), Burger King (NYSE: BKC), and Wendy's/Arby's Group (NYSE: WEN) for the right to feed consumers on the go around the world, issued a Q3 report after the bell on Tuesday that was decent in many respects. Earnings per share on an adjusted basis increased over 20% to 70 cents. This performance absolutely embarrassed the analysts, who were looking for a mere 58 cents per share according to our earnings preview.

So, that was one of the decent parts. Actually, I'd say it was a little more than decent. But, unfortunately, the top line didn't grow. Total revenues actually declined 2%.

At the time of this writing, shares of Yum! Brands (NYSE: YUM), a company that competes with McDonald's (NYSE: MCD), Burger King (NYSE: BKC), and Wendy's/Arby's Group (NYSE: WEN), were trading higher by well over 4%. Volume was doing well, too. Interestingly enough, Yum! Brands will be reporting Q3 earnings on Tuesday, October 6, after the bell. Does this mean that you should buy in ahead of the release?

On the surface, I suppose the market is telling you that Yum! Brands would indeed make a good earnings trade. Not only is the stock up nicely this afternoon, but it isn't too far from a 52-week high.

If you're trying to get your head around some stock strategies for the upcoming fall trading season, you might want to consider dividend yields. Volatility could increase since we've had such a run-up in many equities, so thinking about payouts is probably advisable.

I was looking around for some higher-yielding blue chips and became interested in McDonald's (NYSE: MCD). As of last Friday's closing price, McDonald's yields almost 3.6% on an annual basis. It pays out 50 cents per share per quarter according to its corporate website.

TheStreet.com's Jim Cramer says even stocks without exposure to that country will probably be on sale today.

If China has pulled back 20%, do we have to pull back 20%, even though they were up 80% and we are up 9%? Are we so in lock step now that when China catches a cold, we are the ones with pneumonia?

I don't think so. It's such an easy story to stretch out, though you can see that our Freeports (NYSE: FCX) (Cramer's Take) and our Exxons (NYSE: XOM) (Cramer's Take) can get hammered.

Yum! Brands (NYSE: YUM), a chain of restaurant trademarks that competes with McDonald's (NYSE: MCD), Burger King (NYSE: BKC), and Wendy's/Arby's Group (NYSE: WEN), delivered up a nice hot serving of earnings on Tuesday after the bell.

For the second quarter, net sales dropped 7%. Earnings on an adjusted basis increased 10% to 50 cents per share. This was actually much better than analysts' expectations. Wall Street was only counting on 43 cents per share, according to Bloomberg. However, the market is always looking forward, so there was a bit of bad news in terms of guidance pertaining to same-store sales.

Sonic (NASDAQ: SONC), a fast-food chain whose colleagues include Burger King (NYSE: BKC), McDonald's (NYSE: MCD), Wendy's/Arby's Group (NYSE: WEN), and Yum! Brands (NYSE: YUM), reported earnings for the third quarter on Tuesday after the bell. The shares have done well today on the news. As I write this, Sonic's stock is up well over 12% in afternoon trading. Volume is great. Do you want to get in on the action?

Sonic said it earned an adjusted 24 cents per share. This article reported expectations as being $0.20 per share, so management beat the bottom line by a nice amount. We'll throw that result on the positive side of the line.

Burger King (NYSE: BKC), a fast-food joint that competes with McDonald's (NYSE: MCD), Yum! Brands (NYSE: YUM), and Wendy's/Arby's Group (NYSE: WEN), issued its Q3 report on Wednesday. The top line didn't do much, rising only 1% in the face of difficulties with currency translations. Earnings came in at 34 cents per share. That was one penny better than Wall Street's expectations, according to Reuters.

It's always good to beat the earnings call. But Burger King didn't get much mileage out of that victory. The stock actually sold off 3% on the news, closing yesterday at a fresh 52-week low of $16.55. The big catalyst was the conservative fiscal-year guidance.

Wendy's/Arby's Group (NYSE: WEN), a fast-food company that competes with McDonald's Corporation (NYSE: MCD), Burger King (NYSE: BKC), and Yum! Brands (NYSE: YUM), reported earnings for the fourth quarter on Monday. Call me unimpressed.

The chain earned $0.05 per share on an adjusted basis. According to this article, the results matched expectations. I don't begrudge Wendy's/Arby's for doing that in such a tough marketplace. But I do begrudge the weakness in the Arby's brand. Systemwide same-store sales at Wendy's were up 3.7% in Q4, while systemwide comps at Arby's were down a terrible 8.5%. Arby's is having problems attracting people with its current menu portfolio. The value menu at Wendy's, on the other hand, seems to be a strategy that is working. Customers are coming in, ready to get a deal on those delicious, although not-so-healthy, square-shaped burgers. So, if the company wants to improve its situation, it's going to have to get serious about fixing Arby's.

Burger King (NYSE: BKC), a famous fast-food joint that competes with McDonald's (NYSE: MCD), Yum! Brands (NYSE: YUM), and Wendy's/Arby's Group (NYSE: WEN), reported earnings for the fiscal second quarter on Thursday. Net sales decreased 3%, and net income dipped 8% to $0.33 per diluted share. The call was for $0.37 per share.

It's good to be the King, but it's not good to miss your earnings forecast. Yes, we shouldn't always pay attention to the analysts and their game, and it's certainly difficult these days to make forecasts anyway, but it's always nice to see a company at least hit the ballpark in terms of consensus.

The press release cited concerns with currency translations, so that's something for shareholders to keep in mind. But the release also cited something that I think is one of the best elements of the Burger King story: its marketing campaigns. Management was happy to congratulate itself on being highlighted by trade journal Ad Week. I know, it's just corporate bragging in an earnings document, who needs that, right? While that may be true, I do honestly believe that Burger King's TV spots have definitely built a loyal following among the valuable youthful demos, and that the campaigns, which have included that creepy royal mascot, are indeed responsible for growth. And those Whopper Virgins commercials were pretty funny, too.

Yum! Brands (NYSE: YUM), whose competitive colleagues include McDonald's Corporation (NYSE: MCD), Burger King Holdings Inc. (NYSE: BKC), and Wendy's Arby's Group (NYSE: WEN), reported earnings for Q4 and the full fiscal year on Tuesday after the bell.

Net sales increased 4% for the quarter to $3.4 billion, and earnings per share on an adjusted basis went up 5% to $0.46. According to the earnings preview, sales essentially met Wall Street's view, but net income was beat by a penny. For the year, Yum! saw a net sales increase of 8% to $11.3 billion, and its adjusted bottom line increased by 14% to $1.91 per share. Once again, sales were in-line, and earnings beat by the proverbial penny.

Wendys Arbys Group's (NYSE:WEN) Wendy's Restaurant's second foray into the breakfast business appears to have failed, sending the company back to the drawing board, and leaving McDonald's (NYSE:MCD) as the clearly dominant player in the drive-through morning business. According to Advertising Age, Wendy's CEO Roland Smith told attendees at an industry conference that the company had decided that the breakfast offering have fallen short of its expectations, both in quality and profitability.

Wendy's has been carrying out a test of breakfast offerings for two years already. In this instance, I suspect that 'test' was a way of couching the rollout so that the company did not have to face the embarrassment of franchisees refusing to open for the breakfast trade. Since the breakfast 'test' was not carried out in all units, it could not be supported by a national ad campaign, a weakness that surely impacted traffic.

The company plans to overhaul the menu, a step badly needed, imho. McDonald's has set the bar very high, offering high-quality fare such as hotcakes, biscuits and English muffins. Wendy's alternatives, which I had the occasion to sample a couple of times, seemed second-rate by comparison, made worse when low traffic volume resulted in less than fresh ingredients.

Given the saturation of the drive-through burger industry, I expect that Wendy's will indeed return again to the breakfast wars in an attempt to increase returns per unit. Finding an identity and the money to elbow its way into the market, however, will be difficult tasks.

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