There is a lot of talk swirling around Wall Street about the current economic slowdown, and just how hard it is going to hit businesses in the months ahead. But so for fast food giant McDonald's (NYSE: MCD), 2008 is looking pretty rosy.

After ending 2007 with a disappointing decline in same store sales, McDonald's has now shown two straight months of sales growth following today's announcement that it had a pretty impressive 11.7% jump in same-store sales during the month of February.

Its American sales saw an increase of 8.3%, while-same stores sales in Europe really took off, showing a jump of an amazing 15.4%. Last month, the company reported that January same-store sales rose by 5.7%.

Wednesday morning, before the market opens, Target Corp. (NYSE: TGT) will be releasing its first quarter 2007 numbers. Analysts are expecting that the company will be announcing earnings per share of $0.71.

Last week, Target's main competitor, Wal-Mart Stores (NYSE: WMT) reported Q1 earnings that failed to impress Wall Street and additionally was forced to lower its Q2 outlook. Both Wal-Mart and Target recently went through a very poor April sales month. When the company announced its weak April sales figures it did not offer any outlook on its current earnings, but did state that same store sales should come in as expected for the first quarter.

Will Target come through with strong earnings? We will just have to wait and see on Wednesday morning, but at this point analysts are betting that it will. Most of the losses the stock took following the weak April sales numbers has already been made up in the market, and out of the 23 analysts who follow the stock, 18 of these maintain a buy rating with the remaining five suggesting holds.

We will be liveblogging Target's investor conference call with up to the minute coverage of the call in its entirety. The call is scheduled to get underway Wednesday morning at 10:30 AM EDT. Be sure to visit us at that time for complete coverage.

Michael Fowlkes has worked as a stock trader for seven years and spent the last two years working as an analyst for the online investment advisory service Investor'sObserver.

The Gap Inc. (NYSE:GPS) clothing store announced last week that net sales for February 2007 were up 5% to $910 million as compared to $865 million for February 2006. However, in a bit of a twist, comparable sales for that period were down 4% from the same period in 2006. The decrease in comparable sales was across the board for all North American Gap divisions:

• Gap North America comparable sales for February 2007 were down 5%, slightly better than a 7% decrease posted for February 2006.
• Banana Republic North America comparable sales were flat, which is a big improvement over an 11% decrease for February 2006
• Old Navy North America comparable sales declined 6%, still better than the 14% decline recorded in February 2006.
• International sales showed a modest 2% increase, very good news when compared to a 14% decline for February 2006.

Gap opened 80 additional retail locations between February 2006 and February 2007. The company currently has 3,135 store locations. A Gap spokesman called the results expected given the challenging retail environment for Gap and Old Navy.