Walt Disney Co. (DIS)

Seasonally this stock tends to rise between October and June. However, the chart shows a double topping pattern, and was confirmed as of November. All the major moving averages are slowly tilting lower. There is support at about $95, but if that is broken you can imply downside potential of about $25.

Star Wars has been incredible. The stock is off quite a bit from its highs. The catalysts this time last year were Star Wars, merchandising, and the new theme park in China. Now ESPN is losing subscribers quickly, down almost 7% due to cable cord cutting or dropping packages. The good news is behind them now and all that remains is the ESPN worry. He has a lack luster outlook on it right now.

Stock vs. Stock. CGX-T vs. DIS-N. CGX-T is in the exhibition business and DIS-N is in the marketing and production business. CGX-T is a very smart company and he has owned it for years. They make money on the concessions, airline entertainment, the advertising and the movies. They are building out theatres into entertainment complexes now to add to their revenue streams. DIS-N makes money with their movies, but to him CGX-T is less risky.

It is not just about Star Wars. ESPN is the negative. Some new households will never get cable TV. They lost 7 Million subscribers. After that you probably want to hold on to it. A partial offset will be DIS-N offering it as a standalone channel like Crave. There is the Chinese theme park and Star Wars is about to surpass the all time record.

(Top Pick Dec 19/14, Up 12.21%) They cross sell so beautifully. This has been to him the greatest growth stock. He feels there could be some short term earnings challenges. There are concerns about ESPN’s affect on the bottom line. He feels it will be a onetime hit because after they unbundle ESPN from packages, subscribers will pick it up again.

Near term there is a reasonable chance it is been pre-traded because of Star Wars. Near term he would be a little cautious, but long-term there is no company that can monetize content better than this company. You might want to get a little bit of time for the froth to wear off, but definitely keep it on your radar.

Has been an incredible stock over the past couple of years, especially last year, when it was a really big mover. This year we have Star Wars, but we are getting some downgrades from analysts. The stock is pretty expensive, but it is pretty hard not to want to own it. The little pullback is based off of analysts’ cuts. Still likes this and has no reason to believe that the line that is trending higher will stop.

ESPN counts for more than half of their operating earnings. Star Wars is coming out. They have all the merchandising that goes into stores and theme parks. The park in China opens next year. Cap-X should decline once that park opens up.

Likes this company. Thinks that the new Star Wars is pretty much built into the stock price now, and the price could go down a little after the release. Expectations are extremely high. We know that it will be the top revenue generating movie of all time as long as the movie is a reasonable hit. They’ve got 6 of them coming up. It will be in a stream of income for the company over the next decade. There has been talk about people cutting the cord and not using cable anymore. One of company’s core assets is ESPN, and the fear has been that Disney will road (?) some of their franchises as people cut the cord. He has less concern and feels that the ESPN franchise and Disney’s library are very, very strong. There is still more upside.

The pull back is a result of news of an SCC filing that showed that ESPN lost a large number of subscribers. However, they are down 8% in subscribers and have raised the price 40%.

A high-quality, large cap, media player that is growing its dividend 20%-25% annually. Don’t underestimate their ability to generate high-quality product. There have been some issues about ESPN not hitting their subscriber growth, but don’t underestimate the thirst or appetite for real-time sports and the premium advertising that is going to be associated with that.

One of those fabulous stories. The problem is you have to separate it into two parts. The content side and the distribution of media content. That whole industry is facing a major disruption in new forms of content and distribution. ESPN and general content distributors have come under fire. That challenge is not going away.

(Top Pick Dec 19/14, Up 22.89%) It is still a good story. He added when it took a hit from the unbundling issue. No one runs content better and cross sells it better.

One of the only media names that have many different platforms to make money. Cable, movie studios, consumer products and theme parks. They are doing well in almost all those segments. Cable was a bit rough back in August because of cable cutting, but they are doing so well with the movie studios. He likes this quite a bit, and long-term it should continue to do well.

A great company, but is tied in a lot to the US$ and has become very expensive to foreign people to travel to the US and spend money. However, if you take out the one time thing relating to broadcasting, the stock has been doing really, really well. As the US economy does better, domestic travel picks up.