Jim Cramer Says He’s ‘Turned Positive’ on Disney (DIS)

We recently published a list of Jim Cramer’s Latest Calls Before 2025 Begins: Top 10 Stocks. In this article, we are going to take a look at where Walt Disney Co (NYSE:DIS) stands against other stocks in Jim Cramer’s latest calls before 2025 begins.

Jim Cramer in a latest program talked about the market reaction to the Federal Reserve’s latest rate cut and its guidance that suggested fewer rate cuts moving ahead.

“I guess you could say the baby got thrown out with the bathwater. It was truly hideous, a little unexpected, and yes, wicked. Even though the market’s barely oversold, we may not get that quick snapback we normally expect in a deeply oversold market,” Cramer said.

Jim Cramer said Jerome Powell’s comments and tone were “stern” and his conference call “confounded” investors. Cramer said inflation has not come down enough and that has made the Fed’s job difficult.

Cramer then talked about different sectors and companies that need rate cuts amid a slowdown.

“I really wish the Fed hadn’t been so defensive about the need to cut rates going forward. A slower approach would have been much better. If they had explicitly taken a wait-and-see approach before this meeting, we’d be in a better position. This time, they telegraphed the wrong thing, hence today’s meltdown. However, if the weaker part of the economy deteriorates further or inflation comes down, the Fed still has room to cut. Here’s the bottom line: a previously data-dependent Fed chose not to be data-dependent today with its pronouncements, and that’s what drove the market down. This happened despite the quarter-point rate cut—something that’s typically good news for stocks—but it turned out to be the very opposite.”

READ ALSO: 7 Best Stocks to Buy For Long-Term and 8 Cheap Jim Cramer Stocks to Invest In

For this article, we watched some latest programs of Jim Cramer and picked 11 stocks he is talking about. With each company, we have mentioned the number of hedge fund investors. Why are we interested in the stocks that hedge funds pile into? The reason is simple: our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Our quarterly newsletter’s strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 275% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 150 percentage points (see more details here).

Walt Disney Co (NYSE:DIS)

Number of Hedge Fund Investors: 76

Jim Cramer in a latest program on CNBC said he has “turned positive” on Walt Disney Co (NYSE:DIS). Talking about a bullish analyst note on the stock, Cramer said:

“Streaming getting into profitability and then showing, starting to show significant margin improvement will be very important and I think the parks are going to surprise.”

Meridian Hedged Equity Fund stated the following regarding The Walt Disney Company (NYSE:DIS) in its Q2 2024 investor letter:

The Walt Disney Company (NYSE:DIS) operates a diversified entertainment business with theme parks, media networks, and streaming services. We own Disney because we believe its strong brand, valuable IP, and expanding streaming offerings will drive sustainable long-term growth. The company’s stock, however, underperformed in the quarter due to concerns about a slowdown in growth at its theme park division. While park revenue still grew by 10% year-over-year, management’s commentary suggested a moderation in post-pandemic demand and rising costs, leading to a disappointing outlook for park operating income in the second half of the year. This overshadowed the positive news that the company’s streaming segment, driven by strong subscriber growth at Disney+, reached profitability ahead of schedule. We held our position and will continue to monitor the performance of the theme park division.”

Overall, DIS ranks 5th on our list of Jim Cramer’s latest calls before 2025 begins. While we acknowledge the potential of DIS, our conviction lies in the belief that under the radar AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns, and doing so within a shorter time frame. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than DIS but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.

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Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.