McDonald's shares look dollar-menu cheap

McDonald's (MCD) might secretly wish that the recession would never end. The Dow component posted some more impressive quarterly results Thursday, which easily beat Wall Street's forecasts. Perhaps most impressive, global same-store sales, a key figure measuring sales at restaurants open more than a year, jumped more than five percent.

It just goes to show that a well-run company selling cheap food to cash-strapped consumers can do very well in a global downturn. The market naturally rewarded Mickey D's performance by gobbling up shares like a Big Mac with fries.

True, it's never ideal to initiate or add to a position when a stock is popping, but after McDonald's third-quarter earnings report? Well, we're loving it.