Q1 Earnings Preview: Walt Disney (DIS)

Shares of Walt Disney (NYSE: DIS) are trading higher ahead of the company's first quarter earnings release, expected after the market closes today. Shares are up 0.17% to $29.53 currently.

DIS gained about 18.8% through Q110, and 44% through 2009, hitting a 52-week low of $15.14 on March 10, 2009.

Data from Bloomberg shows that 15 analysts have a Buy rating, 15 have a Hold, and 4 suggest to Sell. The analyst price consensus is $33.55. The 'Street high' is $40, and the low is $20.

DIS is expected to post an EPS of $0.39 on revenues of $9.63 billion. For Q109, DIS reported an EPS of $0.41, and revs of $9.6 billion, both missing views.

NEWS THROUGH Q110:
In October, the company named Rich Ross to the position of Chairman of the Board.

Early November saw Disney get the O.K. to build a theme-park in China. Disney will have a 47% stake in the park, named the Shanghai Disney Park [Editor's Note: Not sure why they didn't name it 'Disney Shanghai']. The investment was announced to be $3.5 billion, and is set to open in 2014.

Disney's Q409 conference call highlighted the upcoming film "The Princess and the Frog," which premiered in December 2009. The films was one of the best grossing over the holiday season. Sources have the film raking in about $100 million [IMDB.com] as of January 29, 2010, and had a budget of $105 million [est'd.].

The last day of the quarter saw Marvel shareholders approve the company's $4.3 billion merger with Disney.

ANALYST RATING CHANGES:
In early October, Morgan Stanley boosted their price target to $35 while maintaining their Overweight rating.

Bank of America Merrill Lynch upgraded DIS from Underperform to Neutral, and raised their price target on the stock to $30 from $22.

Caris & Co. raised their price target to $35 from $30, and maintained their Above Average rating on DIS.

November had Deutsche Bank raise their price target on Disney to $39 from $31 while maintaining their Buy rating.

FINAL THOUGHTS:
Media outlets are having a fun earnings season so far, after weathering a rough tail-end 2008 through most of 2009. News Corp. posted a Q210 earnings report that beat estimates on the top and bottom, and Time Warner also posted a strong Q409 report. Families may have been expanding a little more on entertainment through the last quarter, as can bee seen by the impressive results at the box office and through the 2009 holiday sales season. Look for Disney to surprise investors again this quarter.

Disney will issue its Q110 results via press release at approximately 4:00 PM (EST) on February 9, 2010. Stay tuned to StreetInsider.com's Earnings section to see our analysis of the highly-anticipated quarterly results within seconds of their release.

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