06 Apr Disney Is an Amusement Parks Company, Analyst Says; TV and Movies Are a Side Hustle [Indie Wire]
BY TONY MAGLIO
April 6, 2023 | You would think Disneyland was the un-Happiest Place on Earth™ the way Wall Street values Disney, one media-analyst group argues.
Researchers at Moffett Nathanson are baffled by the “shocking… underperformance” of Disney shares (DIS), which are down 30 percent since the start of 2021. Considering the overall stock market is up about 30 percent in that period, the DIS movement in the wrong direction “paints a depressing picture.”
And a confusing one. The struggles of media stocks, and streamers in particular, is well known — but Disney is no pure-media company and considering the post-Covid “amazing resurgence” (see below) of its U.S. parks-and-resorts business, the analysts cannot fathom why “the market has overly punished” DIS.
Disney shares aren’t seeing the worst of the media-stock carnage — ask Paramount Global (-49 percent) and Warner Bros. Discovery (-54 percent) about that. However, the one-third decline in Disney value is too harsh. After all, Paramount (PARA) and Warner Bros. Discovery (WBD) don’t have Disney’s lucrative parks, experiences, and consumer products business.