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Walt Disney (DIS) Gains But Lags Market: What You Should Know

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Walt Disney (DIS - Free Report) closed the most recent trading day at $94.30, moving +0.86% from the previous trading session. This change lagged the S&P 500's 0.95% gain on the day. Elsewhere, the Dow gained 0.64%, while the tech-heavy Nasdaq added 0.23%.

Prior to today's trading, shares of the entertainment company had lost 9.45% over the past month. This has lagged the Consumer Discretionary sector's loss of 7.03% and the S&P 500's loss of 3.49% in that time.

Investors will be hoping for strength from Walt Disney as it approaches its next earnings release. In that report, analysts expect Walt Disney to post earnings of $1.06 per share. This would mark year-over-year growth of 32.5%. Meanwhile, our latest consensus estimate is calling for revenue of $21.3 billion, up 25.15% from the prior-year quarter.

For the full year, our Zacks Consensus Estimates are projecting earnings of $4.03 per share and revenue of $84.77 billion, which would represent changes of +75.98% and +25.73%, respectively, from the prior year.

Any recent changes to analyst estimates for Walt Disney should also be noted by investors. These recent revisions tend to reflect the evolving nature of short-term business trends. As such, positive estimate revisions reflect analyst optimism about the company's business and profitability.

Based on our research, we believe these estimate revisions are directly related to near-team stock moves. We developed the Zacks Rank to capitalize on this phenomenon. Our system takes these estimate changes into account and delivers a clear, actionable rating model.

Ranging from #1 (Strong Buy) to #5 (Strong Sell), the Zacks Rank system has a proven, outside-audited track record of outperformance, with #1 stocks returning an average of +25% annually since 1988. Over the past month, the Zacks Consensus EPS estimate has moved 4.68% lower. Walt Disney is holding a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold) right now.

Looking at its valuation, Walt Disney is holding a Forward P/E ratio of 23.22. Its industry sports an average Forward P/E of 18.82, so we one might conclude that Walt Disney is trading at a premium comparatively.

Investors should also note that DIS has a PEG ratio of 1.09 right now. The PEG ratio is similar to the widely-used P/E ratio, but this metric also takes the company's expected earnings growth rate into account. The Media Conglomerates was holding an average PEG ratio of 1.34 at yesterday's closing price.

The Media Conglomerates industry is part of the Consumer Discretionary sector. This group has a Zacks Industry Rank of 219, putting it in the bottom 14% of all 250+ industries.

The Zacks Industry Rank gauges the strength of our individual industry groups by measuring the average Zacks Rank of the individual stocks within the groups. Our research shows that the top 50% rated industries outperform the bottom half by a factor of 2 to 1.

Make sure to utilize Zacks.com to follow all of these stock-moving metrics, and more, in the coming trading sessions.


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