Wall Street Lunch: McDonald’s Menu Gets Energy Boost With Red Bull Energizer

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McDonald’s adds energy drinks for first time. (0:15) L3Harris CEO steps down over conduct. (1:01) Big Tech has $3T in off-balance-sheet commitments. (1:29)

This is an abridged transcript of the podcast:

Our top story so far, from Happy Meals to Hyper Meals.

McDonald’s (MCD) officially added energy drinks to its menu for the first time today with the debut of its new Red Bull Dragonberry Energizer.

The energy drink is made with Red Bull, blue raspberry flavoring and freeze-dried dragonfruit pieces. Customers can also order a reduced-sugar option with Red Bull Zero or a regular 8.4-ounce Red Bull can.

A Citi survey showed that 60% of energy beverage consumption at restaurants and coffee shops is incremental. Meanwhile, 49% of respondents said an energy drink purchased at a restaurant would replace one purchased elsewhere.

And 74% of respondents are very or somewhat interested in purchasing energy drinks from a restaurant or coffee shop, including 44% who are very interested.

Morgan Stanley thinks the energy drink platform could be a “swing factor” for McDonald’s investors to watch in the second half of the year.

Among active stocks, L3Harris Technologies (LHX) is lower after Chairman and CEO Christopher Kubasik stepped down over conduct that was “not consistent” with the company’s values. But L3Harris stressed the departure was not related to its financials or operations.

Wells Fargo upgraded Okta (OKTA) to Overweight from Equal Weight, citing signs of improving demand and execution in its core business.

Analyst Richard Poland said the company’s focus on large enterprises, including adding capacity and expanding partnerships, is “bearing fruit.”

And nine big tech companies have around $3T in off-balance-sheet commitments, mostly tied to AI infrastructure, according to The Wall Street Journal.

The paper looked at expenses at Amazon (AMZN), Alphabet (GOOG, GOOGL), Meta (META), Oracle (ORCL), Nvidia (NVDA), Microsoft (MSFT), Broadcom (AVGO), SpaceX (SPCX) and Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) that aren’t reflected on their balance sheets but instead appear in the footnotes of their most recent securities filings.

The items include obligations under outstanding leases, long-term borrowings and purchase commitments. And they’re growing faster than traditional capex.

In other news of note, popular ice cream maker Rebel Creamery has filed for bankruptcy less than one month after losing a lawsuit against rival Van Leeuwen over trademark rights.

The privately owned company built its identity around low-carb, high-fat products with no added sugar.

Van Leeuwen sued Rebel in April 2021, alleging that Rebel’s packaging copied its distinctive pastel, monochromatic look and black-script branding.

And the first-ever electric car manufactured by Ferrari (RACE) was sold at Sotheby’s for $40M — a new vehicle auction record.

Ferrari filled its entire 2026 allocation of just under 500 Ferrari Luce cars in less than two months after its May launch, despite a base price around $640K and mixed public reactions to its design.

And in the Wall Street Research Corner, space is moving from the final frontier to an institutional asset class, as falling launch costs, private investment and public-market funding reshape the orbital economy.

In a report titled “The Second Space Age,” Goldman Sachs said space is becoming “a new pillar of the industrial economy,” with its own supply chains, infrastructure nodes and points of concentration where economic power can accumulate.

The global space-based economy (NASA) (UFO) is forecast to reach $1.8T by 2035. More than $55B was invested into the space ecosystem in 2025, while the first quarter of 2026 posted a record $36B of investment.