Do you think Disney is a Buy, Sell, or Hold?

Also, IMHO, I always thought Disney would be the kind of company to acquire other companies, NOT being taken-over by someone else (Comcast). A move like that would certainly take a lot of the "magic" out of Disney ... to me, at least. Any thought or comments on this?

I say DIS is a hold.

As for Disney being a company that should be taking over instead of being taken over, I somewhat agree. Disney should be in a position to take over but not necessarily do too much of it. That's one of my problems with Eisner...he bought too much...the company's much too big to manage now and has become a takeover candidate.

Disney should be cash rich.

Disney's been "up" since the Comcast bid. Now would not be the time to buy.

Yeah, it's probably a hold.

Originally posted by SoftwareGuy
Also, IMHO, I always thought Disney would be the kind of company to acquire other companies, NOT being taken-over by someone else (Comcast).

I think Disney has had only mixed-success in acquiring other companies and many people feel they need to divest of some other companies rather than acquire more. However, I agree that being taken over by Comcast would probably not be in the best interest of the Disney fan (although it might work out well for the Disney shareholder.)

I'd tend to agree it is a hold. The company is probably in too much turmoil currently to make it a good candidate for new investment, but there is also a pretty high potential that the stock is currently undervalued, making it reasonable not to divest what you already have.

-Jeff

Years ago we had a few shares of Disney, but then sold them for the money. November 18, 2003, Mickey's 75th birthday, we bought Disney again but I did so (joint decision with DH) with some misgivings. It was only weeks before Roy Disney abruptly quit the Board. At the time I was aware of the pending demise of the animation studio in Florida, Disney's own feature animation movies paling by comparison to Pixar's, and other dilutions or misdirections of the company. I certainly had no idea Disney stock would get this volatile so soon after we bought our shares. If anyone buys Disney now, dabble in only a few shares, don't put your whole wad of investment mooney into it. I wouldn't buy more shares than we already own. Like others posting here, we'll "hold" and see what happens.

What I am glad about, however, is that by buying some Disney stock when we did we did qualify as "stockholders of record" by X-date in January 2004 to qualify to get the proxy ballot.

There is some talk in the press of a written consent challenge, to try to force another shareholders' meeting to make those proxy "withhold" votes stick. In which case shareholders of record can participate in that activity if and when it comes up. But to buy Disney stock now is highly speculative. It's unknown the direction of the company a year or 5 years from now. Buy the stock because you feel the stock will grow and be a good investment. You may someday have to sell the stock, and it's always better to do so at a profit to more than cover the costs and fees of selling, than selling at cost or at a loss.

DIS is a hold at this point. I believe the Comcast deal is dead as a doornail unless they pony up some more cash or bring in a partner.

If the DIS board allows that buffoon Eisner to continue long term be ready to unload your long position and consider going short if you think the stock price will take a dive.

(Full disclosure: I own DIS shares, long position).