McDonald's Plant-Based Burger Announcement Sends Beyond Meat Stock Into Chaos
This morning, McDonald's announced that it had developed a plant-based burger of its very own: The McPlant. In fact, international president Ian Borden's exact words were that McPlant was created "by McDonald's and for McDonald's." After the burger was announced, this is what happened to Beyond Meat's stock:
McDonald's says it expects to launch a plant-based product line called "McPlant"; Beyond Meat shares plunge more than 6% https://t.co/RqHoNi62d1 pic.twitter.com/XRV3GzR47w
— CNBC Now (@CNBCnow) November 9, 2020
Shares tumbled by 6%. A few hours later, though, Beyond Meat issued a statement to CNBC that its stock plunge was based on nothing more than a false assumption by investors: McDonald's, it turns out, has a partner in all this meat-free madness, and that partner is... Beyond Meat. After that was cleared up, here's what happened to Beyond Meat's stock:
Beyond Meat shares turn sharply higher after spokesperson for the company says "Beyond Meat and McDonalds co-created the plant-based patty which will be available as part of their McPlant platform."https://t.co/RqHoNhOrlt pic.twitter.com/cVkE7m5hAf
— CNBC Now (@CNBCnow) November 9, 2020
Shares shot up again, even higher than where they'd been sitting when McDonald's first made its McPlant announcement. It's been long suspected that McDonald's and Beyond Meat were in secretly in cahoots, as former McDonald's CEO Don Thompson has a seat on Beyond Meat's board of directors and was an early investor in the company. No word if there's now plant-based beef between Thompson and Borden after this morning's debacle, but for the sake of my McDonald's fan fiction, I damn sure hope so. Anyway, congrats to all the shrewd investors that took advantage of this silly mistake to make millions of dollars.