I’ve got quite a lot to share as I close out my annual review process, looking at each stock I own in some detail and updating my opinion on it for you. First I’ve got the last few stocks that don’t fit into one of the sectors I’ve covered so far over the past month, and then I’ve also got a couple buys to note for you this week, as well as the first two stocks that I’ll be putting on the watchlist for future consideration.
In the wake of collapsing shares of some market darlings, I happily pat myself on the back for not quite giving in to temptation and trying to “catch the falling knife” that has been Under Armour (UA)… or the more persistently depressing Chipotle (CMG)… but there is one stock that I bought in a panic dip and would consider buying more of today that’s also a “brand name” stock, and that’s Walt Disney (DIS).
Walt Disney (DIS) 1.5% of equity portfolio
DIS $100 2018 Call Options 0.75% of equity portfolio
Disney is, of course, the most iconic of American entertainment companies, with huge revenue drivers from movies (Star Wars, Pixar and Marvel in addition to the venerable Disney studios themselves), theme parks (including the gigantic Shanghai Disneyland opened last year, in addition to the continuing success of their core US parks in California and Florida), and television… and it’s the television one that has investors worried, and that has caused some softness in the stock from time to time over the past couple years after what seemed like an endless run up in the shares.
There’s good reason for that — Disney’s media networks, which includes ABC and the various Disney brands but is mostly dependent on ESPN, are the biggest division at the company and generate almost $6 billion in revenue per quarter. Next biggest is Parks and Resorts, which is expected to have $4.75 billion in revenue this quarter, and the most attention-getting division on the positive side of late is one of the smaller ones — the studio business, which includes Lucasfilm and Marvel and Pixar, is expected to have $1.9 billion in revenue in this next released quarter (the rest, expected to be about $1.4 billion, comes from consumer products and interactive).
The peak for Disney came in the middle of 2015, when panic ...