Disney Stock Recovers

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Apr 29, 7:05AM EDT

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Disney Stock Recovers — © Valerie Loiseleux / iStock Unreleased via Getty Images

After suffering a setback for a year and a half after Bob Iger returned to the CEO position, Walt Disney Co. (NYSE: DIS | DIS Price Prediction) stock has begun to recover. Shares are up 25% this year, compared to less than a 10% gain for the S&P 500.

It has been about a month since Disney won a bruising proxy war with raider Nelson Peltz. Peltz did benefit. He made about $300 million on his investment.

The tide has turned because people have started to view Iger’s tenure differently. What was a disaster in streaming has started to lose less money. Iger says the company can close the gap between its costs and income. Some of this will come with price increases. There is a lot of leverage in what customers will pay. The streaming channel Disney+ has over 150 million subscribers.

Disney’s theme parks, one of its oldest businesses, saw revenue increase of 7% last year. Operating income rose 8% for the three months ending December 30. Most major parks in the company’s portfolio have raised prices this year.

The movie division had a tough year in 2023. This year, it has several titles that should do well. A new version of “Snow White,” one of Disney’s franchises, is on the way. “Frozen 3” and “Toy Story 5” will be released this year. Each is part of one of Disney’s most popular franchises.

Peltz is gone, Iger has breathing room, and 2024 looks promising. Now, all Iger has to do is deliver.

If you invested $15,000 in Disney 10 years ago, this is how much you would have today.

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.