The Walt Disney Company (DIS)

Disney has shown excellent progression since the 1920’s putting it as a great buy at anytime. With Mickey Mouse being one of the largest children idols in the world there’s no way Disney could go wrong. Three Classic Fairy Tales is a new on stage show that will grab people’s attention all over the world. Also with C. S. Lewis’s novel series The Chronicles of Narnia starting to take off into an on screen adventure I believe that this will drive Disney ratings through the roof. A few more Disney movies include: High School Musical, Pirates of the Caribbean and National Treasure. With those behind your sails of profit you’ll be on the fast track to wealth. Disney is a fast moving steam ship, constantly expanding on a global scale, and there not running out of steam any time soon. “Today, Walt Disney Parks and Resorts operates or licenses 11 theme parks on three continents, along with 35 resort hotels, two luxury cruise ships and a wide variety of other entertainment offerings” Says Disney. So without further gilding of the lily, Invest and enjoy the magic of Disney!

Disney is an incredible brand and a "megantuan" presence in the entertainment industry. I think that American culture will continue to be a long term driver of Disney products worldwide. Even some of my high school students from a lower income region of Washington still vacation in Disney World/Land! Tough to argue with the allure.
2006 financials were outstanding - while revenues climbed only 8%, net income up 33%, owner's earnings up 65%. I imagine that the EPS growth rate will eventually hit the lower revenue growth rate, but for a few years, I think moderately higher growth is likely. Using a 12% growth rate for the next 5 years, followed by 8% for the following 5, I value DIS between $40 and $57 per share (Dec 06). This represents a margin of safety between 19% and 43%. Great brand, good price, good mechanism for long term growth.

Now with Pixar in the House of Mouse, things are heading to infinity and beyond.

Bob Iger is willing to take risks and rebuild the bridges Michael Eisner burned. With the animation department under the capable watch of Pixar's crack staff, quality should improve first there, and then spread across the other Disney properties in time. It's the right people running the business at a crucial inflection point in the entertainment business, and they seem to be making all the right moves.

Every move that Disney has made since firing Michael Eisner, seem to be absolutely wonderful calls. Buying Pixar, reducing their studio ouput, etc. It seems like Iger is a breath of fresh air at Disney.

It's a solid company, but their IP is starting to go out of copyright, and they are going through some shakey times.

Disney's decisive shift to focus on animated entertainment is a pretty bold admission that they want to return to the glory days, and are willing to do what it takes to get there. I'm thinking that even as movie studios are losing ground to DVDs and other forms of entertainment, Disney's new strategy has a pretty good chance of succeeding -- at the very least, the brand is powerful, and the legacy is not to be taken lightly.

Ask your tweens what company most effects their life? Do they watch disney channel, go to dis movies, listen to dis songs (like home school musical,) play with Dis toys, downloads dis shows from itunes? Do they watch ABC? Does your wife watch Desp Housewives? Do you watch ESPN? This tween knows that Disney is a buy!

What's not to like? A new energetic CEO who is saying all the right things, PIXAR in the stable forever, ABC rising from the dead, the Pirates movie franchise, and the best theme park experience in the world.

With A&M of PIXAR Disney now has more profit potential and plus its new video download can be good pitch for profit. Risk - well from what we seen last few years...history could repeat itself.

Three words: disney dot com. The relaunching of the website backed by DIS's iconic library of content is enough to push DIS over the edge for the forseeable future. Add in properties like ESPN (with its massive dish and cable distribution) and ABC (Lost returns in Februrary), and multiply by the new aggressive management. I don't see how DIS can loose.

I believe disney is a solid company with issues like any large corporation, but i believe they will / have overcome these issues & will continue to expand the company. Their movies have especially seen a good deal of growth in the past several years, & I see this trend continuing.

They're riding the -2RMS line in the BMW method (30 years) like it's a bicycle. That's not so bad -- they're still riding upward at a nice clip and it bodes well for a jump in the not-too distant future. I like their recent partnership with, and then purchase of, Pixar, too.

More than that, though, there's Disney and girls. When it comes to sappy romance movies aimed at girls of all ages, Disney has known how to do it forever -- and they keep doing it over and over with each new generation. Lady & the Tramp? Reissue it on DVD and watch women from 68 to 4 years old gather 'round the TV on Christmas Day (yes, that's what we did). And then there are the Disney Princesses. Cinderella is this year's featured princess with the re-release of the movie. Go ahead, buy it. The songs will run through your head, you'll pause and wonder how they perfectly copied the body language and intonations of the 1940s and 1950s movie stars (Watch how the Prince pauses and then dashes up the stairs. Remind you of anyone?), and an hour later your kid will want to watch it again. Then there'll be the Cinderella birthday party, the Cinderella tiara, the Cinderella dress-up doll, the Cinderella card games, and, of course, www.disneyweddings.com.

Until they figure out how to turn off the romance gene in women, Disney's got the market for way more than just the kid. They've got the kid in all of us.

Undervalued because of fears of recession.
However, lots of foreigners will visit their parks because Euro and other currencies are revalued.

We recently visited Disney World in Orlando and most people around us spoke foreign languages. We were also impressed with the organization and the quality.
My son loves Mickey and the Disney channel.

My Mom took me to the Saturday Matinee shows to see any Disney flick. I've been to Disney World at least 5 times and Disneyland once. I have two kids under age 2 and my collection of DVDs keeps growing. Baby Einstein products rock!

Disney has weathered the 9/11 slowdown in travel, has seen recent success in movies, and is a close ally of Apple and others in developing new distribution channels for content creators. Iger has returned vision to Disney and it should pay off.

Reasons to buy Disney: Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Winnie the Pooh, the Muppets, John Lasseter, Steve Jobs, Pixar, ESPN, ABC, Lifetime, A&E, 2006 EBITA = 8% of interest expense, 8% annual increase in sales over last 3 years, Pirates of the Caribbean, Cars, the Little Mermaid, and Peter Pan.

The ONLY reason I’m hesitant to say outperform is because this stock is already at its 52 week high. Otherwise I’m perfectly fine with rating it an outperform.

Key movies such as Cars and Pirates of the Caribbean were all MAJOR hits this year, if i remember correctly there were all on the top of the list. A strong company with many strong movies.

Disney finally helped its self, by doing the right thing in giving Pixar their due. This pairing by its self is great, but I also see Disney & Apple benefiting from one anther quite handsomely as well, in both the near and distant future. Because of Disney making the right move and bringing Pixar into the family and Mr. Steve Jobs seeming to be a part of that package as well. I see some good things if not great things Apple and Disney can do with/for one another, with out either company owning the other, but of course I well be owning (Here comes the PUN) my share of both.