Santa Claus tours Valparaiso Bay by boat

A fisherman dressed as Santa Claus waves to people from a small-scale fishing boat on Christmas Eve (Lucas Aguayo Araos/Getty Images)

A festive meal based on a mean, green, hairy creature fueled McDonald’s biggest day of sales on record

“Am I eating this just because I’m bored?”

Luke Kawa

2/11/26 6:10PM

A green, hairy creature with a heart three sizes too small is a big reason McDonald’s sales in Q4 were so large.

The Grinch may have been unsuccessful in stealing Christmas, but during the holiday quarter, the Grinch Meal helped “set new sales records, including the highest single sales day in our history,” according to Chief Financial Officer Ian Borden.

“Overall, for the entire campaign, we sold nearly as many Grinch meals as our highly successful 2025 Minecraft movie meal and 2024 Collector Cups promotions combined,” he added.

For the final three months of the year, the chain’s same-store sales growth of 5.7% exceeded the consensus estimate of 3.9%, with revenues also beating expectations.

The meal featured a drink, a choice of main entree (Big Mac or 10-piece McNuggets), and special fries seasoned with dill-flavored Grinch Salt.

Oh, and you also got socks, too — with McDonald’s selling enough to cover all the toes in California, and then some, in just a matter of days.

“With the inclusion of Grinch-themed collectible socks in many markets, we were the largest seller of socks in the world for nearly a week,” Chief Executive Officer Chris Kempczinski said. “We sold about 50 million pairs globally across the first few days of the campaign.”

Luke Kawa

4 charts that show the speculative boom is back on

We’re so back.

BRITAIN-LONDON-FIREWORKS-NEW YEAR-CELEBRATION

The Future of the AI boom is coming into view

GE Vernova and Vertiv are giving us a glimpse into the future of the AI boom

GEV’s backlogs are bursting at the seams. One analyst told us he thinks that by the end of this year, GEV could be completely sold out of production capacity for heavy-duty turbines until 2029 or 2030.

Matt Phillips9m

Max Knoblauch11m

Low-cost airlines plunge on report Trump administration is close to $500 million rescue deal for Spirit

Low-budget US airlines are sinking on Wednesday morning following a Wall Street Journal report that the Trump administration is close to making a rescue deal for Spirit Airlines, which is said to be nearing liquidation amid high fuel costs.

Shares of Frontier, Allegiant, JetBlue, and Southwest Airlines all dropped notably.

Per the WSJ, the US government could soon loan Spirit up to $500 million in return for warrants to take a sizable stake in the airline, which has filed for bankruptcy twice since late 2024. The carrier has made efforts to emerge from its latest bankruptcy, filed in August, but fuel costs amid the war in Iran have upset the math.

On Tuesday, President Trump told CNBC he would “love somebody to buy Spirit.”

Exclusive | Trump Administration Nearing Rescue Deal for Spirit Airlines

On Tuesday, President Trump told CNBC he would “love somebody to buy Spirit.”

Max Knoblauch4h

Boeing reports better-than-expected Q1 earnings, revenue

Plane maker Boeing reported its first-quarter earnings before the market opened on Wednesday. Its shares climbed more than 3% in premarket trading.

For Q1, Boeing reported:

An adjusted loss of $0.20 per share, compared to the loss of $0.68 per share expected by Wall Street analysts polled by FactSet.
Revenue of $22.22 billion, compared to estimates of $21.85 billion.

Boeing reported -$1.45 billion in free cash flow in Q1, compared to the -$2.34 billion expected by Wall Street. Prior to Wednesday, Boeing had reported two consecutive quarters of positive FCF following six straight quarters of negative results. The company is still guiding for full-year FCF of between $1 billion and $3 billion.

Earlier this month, Boeing announced it had delivered 143 commercial jets in Q1, up 10% from the same period last year and ahead of rival Airbus, which delivered 114. This was Boeing’s first time outdelivering Airbus since 2018.

Matt Phillips4h

GE Vernova, top AI energy play, rises after Q1 report

GE Vernova, a maker of power plant equipment that’s seen orders tied to data centers surge, rose early Wednesday after posting strong Q1 results and lifting full-year sales guidance. The GE spin-off reported:

Adjusted EBITDA of $896 million vs. the $772 million estimate from analysts polled by FactSet.
Total revenue of $9.34 billion vs. the $9.25 billion consensus expectation from analysts polled by FactSet.
Full-year 2026 sales guidance that was lifted to between $44.5 billion and $45.5 billion from prior guidance of between $44 billion and $45 billion, vs. the consensus estimate of $44.64 billion.

“In the quarter, our electrification segment booked $2.4 billion in equipment orders to support data centers, more than all of last year,” said CEO Scott Strazik.

GE Vernova is up some 600% over the last two years through Tuesday’s close, but the majority of those gains were booked by August 2025. After being largely range-bound for months, the stock busted out following the company’s last earnings report, lifting the shares up nearly 50% in 2026.