Chipotle Mexican Grill (CMG) – Checking In

Ahead of earnings on Wednesday after the close, I wanted to share some recent commentary on what investors can expect, especially since the company presented at last month’s ICR Conference in Orlando:

BAML – On January 18th, analyst Gregory Francfort was out with a note following the ICR Conference in Orlando saying that investors were expecting a pre-announcement of Chipotle’s sales (and they were expecting solid comps with accelerating trends over the past several weeks). However, the company chose not to address near-term sales trends, instead “saving” that news for its 4Q earnings.

CEO Brian Niccol noted encouraging results from CMG’s loyalty program test which is seeing high utilization from infrequent and la