MCD vs WDC: Which Is the Better Buy?
Side-by-side comparison of McDonald's Corporation and Western Digital Corporation — fair value, conviction, valuation metrics, and QuantHub research signals.
Updated 2026-08-06.
McDonald's Corporation · Consumer Cyclical
$267.71
+20.6% upside to fair value
Med Conviction
Grade C+
High Quality
VS
Western Digital Corporation · Technology
$519.17
-28.7% upside to fair value
Med Conviction
Grade C+
QuantHub Verdict
MCD has more upside to fair value
(+20.6%).
These are model outputs — not personalized investment advice.
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Valuation & Fundamentals
| Metric |
MCD |
WDC |
| Current Price |
$267.71 |
$519.17 |
| Fair Value Estimate |
$322.85 |
$370.00 |
| Upside to Fair Value |
+20.6%
|
-28.7%
|
| Market Cap |
$190.2B |
$178.9B |
| Forward P/E |
—
|
27.8x
|
| EV / EBITDA |
16.4x
|
37.3x
|
| Price / Sales |
6.9x
|
13.9x
|
| Price / FCF |
27.0x
|
51.0x
|
| Revenue Growth YoY |
+9.4%
|
+35.7%
|
| Gross Margin |
57.4%
|
48.9%
|
| Operating Margin |
46.0%
|
34.9%
|
| Return on Equity |
-433.9%
|
43.4%
|
| Dividend Yield |
2.75% |
0.1% |
| FCF Yield |
3.7%
|
2.0%
|
| Analyst Consensus |
Buy
|
Buy
|
Investment Thesis
McDonald's is a global quick-service restaurant franchisor and real-estate platform whose approximately 95% franchised restaurant base generates unusually high-margin, recurring royalty and rent income, supporting a 46.0% operating margin and 31.6% net margin. Business quality is high because its brand, global purchasing scale, nearly 29,000 drive-thrus, digital ecosystem and 210 million 90-day a…
Western Digital is now a pure-play, duopoly hard-disk-drive manufacturer, having spun off its NAND flash business as SanDisk in February 2025 and sold its remaining SanDisk stake for $3.1 billion in February 2026. It is riding the same AI-storage supercycle as SanDisk and Micron, but from the mass-capacity nearline HDD side: hyperscalers are buying every high-capacity drive WDC can make for AI da…
Accumulation Zones
| Metric |
MCD |
WDC |
| Zone Low |
$242.14 |
$278.00 |
| Zone High |
$274.42 |
$315.00 |
| In Buy Zone? |
Yes
|
No
|