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Disney has outperformed or tracked the S&P 500 as far back as it began trading. 2022-2023 is a huge outlier in terms of bad relative performance . from $200 to $80 in just a year vs spx almost having recovered its losses. i think you could be right that the stock may have simply gotten ahead of itself due to Star Wars and Marvel hype wearing off, combined with some costly unforced errors, changing sentiment, woke backlash, etc. .
As someone who was in the machine for a few years, you're correct in that the value is in the IP.
And they've trashed their IP.
The missing thing everyone tends to overlook is merchandising. Consumer Products was an extreme overperformer in Disney's catalog during the Marvel golden years and the first of the Star Wars sequel trilogy. Add to the ocean of Frozen merchandise... Disney makes significant gains on both product and selling the license to produce product for their brands, backed by a minimum guarantee sales agreement. Their IP did so well that they basically bullied toy and product companies into accepting whatever terms they wanted in order for access to their properties.
This is why The Last Jedi was so significant for Disney. It was a movie where the demand for product basically imploded. Hasbro lost their ass on it, and due to the poor performance of that movie's products as well as the chaos of getting anything approved by Disney for that movie (and the increasingly short turnarounds for Marvel ones in time for movie releases), it basically heavily damaged Disney's relationship with a lot of the toy and product guys.
Bear in mind Consumer Products did so well that they merged it with Parks to try and hide the black hole of Parks spending, mostly driven by overspending on development of new attractions, construction and cost overruns in upkeep.
If your company's value is the value of your IP, the price going through the floor is indicative of how the company is doing at IP management. Faith in Disney's ability to effectively monetize the IPs they own is critically low.
That has been a problem with parks too. They build these (occasionally amazing) rides but they are so expensive, take so long to build, and actually don’t move many people.
Disney had an amazing ability to create truly interesting fun unique rides that moved a lot of people. Sure the ride was expensive but not that expensive.
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