The Walt Disney Company (NYSE: DIS) has released its first-quarter earnings report. Earnings rose by 32% to $0.83 per share from $0.63 in the prior-year quarter. Outside of items it was even better with a 36% earnings gain to $0.79 per share compared to $0.58 in the prior-year quarter, which is narrowly ahead of the $0.76 consensus from Thomson Reuters.

Revenues grew by 10% to $10.554 billion, also slightly above the $10.48 billion consensus. In short, Disney bear earnings estimates and beat revenue estimates. Disney’s Interactive segment remains a money-loser but this was only -$54 million. Here is a breakdown of the gains in sales per unit:

• Media Networks up 6% to $4.957 billion
• Parks and Resorts up 14% to $3.302 billion
• Studio Entertainment up 13% to $1.338 billion
• Consumer Products up 12% to $763 million
• and Interactive up 8% to $179 million

Shares of Disney rose 1.55% to $66.07 today and the stock hit a new all-time high of $66.09. The stock was initially indicated up 0.5% at $66.40 and then more recently was down 0.2% at $65.91 after the stock market close. It is just too soon to tell if this earnings report is going to drive a new all-time yet again.

The one issue we would bring up is that the valuations have gone above what Wall Street analysts are comfortable with. The consensus price target from Thomson Reuters is just over $64.50 on Disney’s stock, so either analysts will have to play catch-up with higher price targets or they will start to say that Disney shares have reached a fair value now that the stock trades at about 19 times expected 2013 earnings.

Thank you for reading! Have some feedback for us?
Contact the 24/7 Wall St. editorial team.