- Needham analyst Laura Martin reiterated a Hold rating on Walt Disney Company (NYSE:DIS) while raising her FY22 EPS view to $4.05 from $3.72 in a note titled "DIS's Parks have Superpowers."
- Martin added $1.66 billion to her forecast for Operating Income for the Parks segment for Q2, doubling estimates to $3.3 billion on better than expected profits for the Parks division and Content Licensing. The higher entertainment programming costs at Hulu and Disney+ and higher sports rights costs than her prior estimates partly offset the optimism.
- The re-rating reflects Martin's view that consensus estimates for Disney were too high, owing to the increased near-term investment in DTC in 2022 and another year of unclear earnings contributions from linear TV and film releases as vaccines roll out slowly globally.
- Price Action: DIS shares traded lower by 2.28% at $108.34 on the last check Friday.
