Battle of the Force

 

“It is more powerful than you know!”
-Darth Maul

It takes strength to resist the dark side. Only the weak embrace it.”

-Obi-Wan Kenobi

There is a battle going on over Walt Disney shares at the moment. On one side we have the growing buzz around the upcoming release of the latest chapter in the epic Star Wars saga. On the other side we have the concerns about subscriber losses due to cord cutting and cord shaving that are weighing on shares.

On Friday, the latter side (let’s call it the dark side) won the most recent battle. Walt Disney (NYSE: DIS, initial buy $48.60) shares traded down 3% in Friday’s trading, as a filing from the company late Wednesday confirmed that sports powerhouse ESPN had lost about 3 million subscribers last fiscal year, having approximately 92 million subscribers at the end of the year. That extended a subscriber decline from the prior year and the scenario was similar for other networks such as the Disney Channel.

Still, the decline in the shares was muted compared to the slide they endured when CEO Bob Iger warned of modest subscriber losses back in August, setting off a meltdown in media stocks. We used the weakness at that time to pick up some shares in Disney for the Global Fund at what we feel was an attractive price point.

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