Is the magic gone?
According to a Market Watch report, Walt Disney Company stock is looking at its worst year since Nixon was in office. Shares declined 5% to the lowest since March 2020 after Disney expressed disappointment with the new Avatar film.
From Market Watch:
“Avatar: The Way of Water” hauled in $134 million domestically and had the second-largest global opening of 2022, but fell short of tracking estimates based on advance U.S. ticket sales and disappointed in one of the biggest markets for the franchise, China.
Disney had hoped to clean up in China, where the first movie in 2009 did blockbuster business. “The Way of Water” earned $57.1 million there, which Disney described in a Wall Street Journal report as disappointing but understandable.
“The problem is nobody wants to go to the cinema, because they’ve been told that COVID is extremely dangerous,” Tony Chambers, Disney’s global head of theatrical distribution, said in the article. “Although cinemas are open, the appetite for going to them isn’t really there.”
The news helped send Disney’s stock down 4.8% Monday, the biggest decline of the day for a Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, +1.60% component, to $85.78 — two cents shy of Disney’s lowest closing price since 2014. “Avatar’s” less-than-stellar start is just the latest setback for Disney shares, which have declined 44.6% this year, putting them on pace for their biggest annual percentage drop since 1974, according to FactSet. The broader S&P 500 index SPX, +1.49% is down 19.9% in 2022, and the Dow is down 9.9%.
Disney recently brought back retired CEO Bob Iger in an attempt to right the ship (and apologize to Florida). Rumors are swirling that Iger may be weighing a big move, with selling properties like ESPN on the table.
More over at Market Watch:
Disney stock on its way to worst year since 1974 after ‘Avatar’ sequel disappoints https://t.co/5McE5LksOt
— MarketWatch (@MarketWatch) December 20, 2022
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