Yet, the stock remains with strong targets and recommendations.
We are seeing pressure from all the uncertainty and near-term issues like Hulu-buyout and DeSantis noise. While the street usually likes cuts and re-orgs... Disney's moves here have been huge, but they've also been slow without any sexy new 'direction' to excite investors. The biggest apple being dangled is D+'s expense future.. and I don't think the market is convinced yet. Add in the Hulu uncertainty and you have a bunch of people being cautious vs optimistic.
Right now Disney lacks the punch of a 'bright future' in their DTC segment, so it's easy for people to pile on smaller issues and tilt them to a negative side. With so much yet to come with how the world will transition away from the legacy networks... I think people really are looking at Disney to be the leader in how this will work, and they haven't cracked the code yet. Because they have so much in their portfolio that stands to loose from this transition, they shoulder much of the industry's burden to make this transition work.
These topics are dragging optimism about Disney down - but its not dragging down their fundamentals at the same scale. So this is a market problem - and less a operational issue. When Disney starts paying the dividend, has D+ outlook that is better, and gets the Hulu story behind them they should get back to floating with the market.
Breakout won't happen until they get some sexy DTC story the market will love for the future of media.
