1. The Walt Disney Company (NYSE: DIS)
Number of Hedge Fund Holders: 144
Total Value of Hedge Fund Holdings: $16.4 Billion
Topping the 10 best streaming stocks to buy now is The Walt Disney Company (NYSE:DIS). The California-based multinational mass media and entertainment company operates its streaming services through Disney+. Disney+ has over 100 million paying subscribers across 59 countries. The company expects its user base to grow to 230-260 million by 2024. The company recently announced a partnership with Vi, an Indian mobile operator to provide complementary content to their subscribers such as live sports.
The Walt Disney Company has a market cap of $336.7 billion. The Walt Disney Company’s total revenue came in at $65.39 billion in 2020. Shares of DIS surged 79% over the last twelve days. On April 20, Wells Fargo Maintained an Overweight rating on DIS and raised the price target to $219.
There were 144 hedge funds that reported owning stakes in The Walt Disney Company at the end of the fourth quarter. The total value of these stakes at the end of Q4 is $16.4 million.
Based on our calculations, The Walt Disney Company (NYSE: DIS) ranks 11th in our list of the 30 Most Popular Stocks Among Hedge Funds.
Hardin Loevner mentioned that DIS is transitioning from the traditional television networks and entertainment model, which relied heavily on cable TV, theme parks, and theatre films, to a direct-to-consumer digital media model in its Q4 2020 investor letter:
“One of the original constituents of the Nifty Fifty holds a place in our portfolio today. When we bought Disney three years ago, we wrote that “we view Disney theme parks in the US, Europe, and China as resistant to online substitution.” We did not reckon on a pandemic, which closed all of them, and sent all of us to our couches. Disney, however, was ready for us, brilliantly illustrating the importance of management foresight and change management. Or, as Louis Pasteur said, “chance favors the prepared mind.”
A century after its founding in 1923, Disney is in the middle of a bold shift from its legacy media networks & entertainment model—with cable TV, theme parks, and theater films dominating its earnings—to a direct-to-consumer streaming media model. The keys to Disney’s transition: matchless storytelling, coupled with financial strength. The company reliably creates content that people all over the world are eager to consume. It also hastened spending on original content to attract subscribers to its new streaming platform. These factors have allowed Disney to weather the pandemic having expanded its direct engagement with customers. Such connections yield a rich harvest of insights used to customize offerings on a mass scale, reinforcing that engagement in a virtuous circle and thereby raising the lifetime value of each customer. Subscribers to Disney+ reached 86.8 million one year after launch, compared to the 60 – 90 million management projected to reach in 2024. To be sure, Netflix, Apple, and Amazon remain formidable competitors in new-era streaming entertainment (mind what we said about everyone standing up at once), but there’s fight left in this old dog.”
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