Disney Stock Gets Hammered

By Douglas A. McIntyre Published Apr 15, 9:15AM EDT

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Walt Disney Co. (NYSE: DIS) CEO Bob Iger has been unable to fix three of the entertainment giant’s important businesses.
Investors should hope he exits sooner than his planned 2026 departure.

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Disney Stock Gets Hammered — © Mickey at Disney World (CC BY 2.0) by Raymond Brown

Walt Disney Co. (NYSE: DIS | DIS Price Prediction) CEO Bob Iger held the job from 2005 to 2020. He returned in November 2022 when the board pushed out Bob Chapek, who was briefly his replacement. Iger had the magician’s touch during his first tenure, but that has disappeared.

Disney’s stock is down by 25% this year, while the S&P 500 is 8% lower.

Iger has not been able to fix three of Disney’s important businesses. The first is its huge theme park business, which the company calls “Experiences.” Its revenue rose only 3% in the most recent quarter to $9.4 billion, and operating income was flat at $3.1 billion. Some analysts think the rising ticket prices will cut park attendance. Additionally, the overall economy has slowed, which could damage attendance.

In the most recent quarter, Disney’s streaming business finally made money after losing billions of dollars. However, the sum was small at $293 million, compared to a loss of $138 million the year before. Nevertheless, Disney’s streaming business is up against streaming giants Netflix and Amazon Prime Video, each of which is growing and has had profits for years.

Finally, the movie business has been awful this year, and Disney’s studio is critical to the company’s financial success. Weekly box office ticket sales per all movie studios nationwide have been $7.9 million, down from $12.7 million last year. Disney’s recent “Snow White” release was considered a major failure. The movie cost over $200 million to make, and it has only brought in $83 million in domestic ticket sales.

Iger says he will leave Disney in 2026. Investors should hope he exits sooner.

Disney Has Forgotten How to Make Movies but Sure Is Good at Spending Money on Them

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.