Investing

Disney Stock Is Tanking

Austin Smith

Published: May 14, 2024 8:00 am

The Walt Disney Company (NYSE: DIS) faced challenges with its recent earnings report, causing its stock to drop significantly. Despite Disney Plus showing improved financials, the decline was attributed to concerns about theme park attendance tapering off post-COVID and rising ticket prices. Additionally, the company’s movie lineup received criticism for lacking originality and failing to resonate with audiences.

Transcript:

The Walt Disney Company, once again, stumbled again. I think investors may look back and say, we wish that Nelson Peltz had gotten those board seats and pushed Iger out. Peltz said that he made a billion dollars trying to raid Disney and get onto its board. So he basically gets kicked out, but he walks out the door with a billion dollars. So Disney comes out with earnings. The good news is that they’re not bleeding billions of dollars on streaming now. They said Disney Plus has lost a very small amount of money. Hulu, which is another streaming service, may be able to say, well, but that may not keep going. But the stock tanked, and the reason the stock tanked is that they said that they run the theme parks, which are really the lifeblood of that company along with the movies. Right. what they called the sort of post-COVID euphoria for people traveling and going to places like theme parks was starting to taper off. So there was a tone of anxiety about the theme parks and the stock dropped more than it has in 18 months. And the thing that’s so incredible is that when you think about the constant inflationary pressures that families are facing, and there are the ones that go to theme parks, the theme parks are incredibly expensive. Well, part of that, I don’t want to say it’s Disney’s fault, but Disney keeps raising the prices on the tickets. And there will come a time, and perhaps they’re seeing that time being now, When you will start to see a fall off in volume in terms of people coming and visiting the parks, you’ll try to make it up by charging more for tickets. But as you know, over time, since middle class people only have so much money, that doesn’t work forever. No, and especially now when things are so inflated at the consumer level, groceries, gasoline, things of that nature. I mean, it’s taking the extra money where you maybe would go to the theme park is going just to pay for everyday necessities. So I think you’re exactly right. Plus, their major issue is their movies are horrible. And they keep trying to repeat the same thing over and over. And they’re bombing.