McDonald's posts strong second quarter profit, names new leader for US market

McDonald's posted a strong profit in its second quarter and named a new head of the U.S. market with sales at home under pressure as many Americans grow increasingly cautious about spending.Same-store sales, or sales at locations open at least a year, edged up 0.8% in the U.S. That’s a sharp slowdown from the 2.5% increase a year ago, when the company had a big win with a meal tied to “A Minecraft Movie.” Global same-store sales rose 1.3%.CEO Chris Kempczinski said during the company's earnings call on Tuesday that the U.S. performance was partly hurt by inconsistent execution across its restaurants and marketing programs that didn't meet expectations.“We don’t have a strategy problem," he said. "We simply didn’t execute at the level we needed to in the second quarter.”Another issue was a pullback on the number of digital offers that customers received, Chief Financial Officer Ian Borden said. Without those offers, customers either bought less, or didn't buy at all. McDonald’s plans to