We recently compiled a list of the 10 Undervalued Wide Moat Stocks to Buy According to Analysts. In this article, we are going to take a look at where The Walt Disney Company (NYSE:DIS) stands against the other undervalued wide moat stocks.

The US economy was able to pass its first soft-landing test by exhibiting resilience through the risky disinflation process. Market experts believe that inflation has now markedly cooled, enabling the US Fed to pivot from rate cuts and transition to backstopping the slowing labour market. However, the final test is yet to be cleared. Market watchers continue to see whether the Fed can reduce the rates back to normal levels while stabilizing the economy.

The fundamentals in the corporate sector appear to be strong and Russell Investments believes this should help in sustaining a period of low layoffs. There has been an improvement in economy-wide corporate profits in the second quarter. The industry consensus earnings growth projections for Q3 2024 exhibit that the resilience will continue, while there are expectations of a broadening out from the mega caps.

Russell Investments believes that global equities took a breather in H2 2024. The investment management firm has seen a rotation into value stocks at the expense of growth stocks. The firm believes that the US small-cap equities have outperformed over the past few months as a result of expectations that the US economy will achieve a soft landing and that there will be lower interest rates.

Consumer Spending and CapEx Plans

The strong core retail sales in July and August and the revival of motor vehicle sales in July helped the consumer demand remain steady in Q3 2024. S&P Global Ratings estimates that consumer spending will be robust at 3.5% annualized for Q3. This will be the fastest pace of personal consumption expenditure (PCE) growth since Q1 2023. However, the rating agency believes that consumers are likely to limit their spending in the coming quarters due to numerous reasons. These include signs of cooling of the labor market, the real income growth running behind the real spending growth, and the household savings rate at a 2-year low, among other reasons.

Talking about the CapEx spending more broadly, business spending has been shaping up for a solid Q3 2024 growth. However, uncertainty around the degree of Fed easing and the 2024 US presidential election are some of the critical factors likely to hold the CapEx. The Fed easing might offer support to CapEx spending, although with a lag.

US Equity Market Outlook

The S&P 500 demonstrated strong performance so far this year. In H1 2024, the Mag7 and other Mega caps drove the performance of an index, whereas since the beginning of H2, the contributors were broad-based.

Despite a marginal decline in Mag7 earnings growth in Q2 2024, Deutsche Bank expects that their earnings will continue to increase at above-average rates. Despite valuations being stretched on a historical comparison, these companies are backed by fundamentals like strong earnings growth expectations. The bank expects annual earnings growth to remain at ~10% in the near term and the S&P 500 to reach ~5,800 points by Q3 2025 end.

The ratings agency expects the US economy to expand 2.7% in 2024 and 1.8% in 2025 (on an annual average basis). As compared to the June forecasts, these projections exhibit an increase of 0.2 and 0.1 percentage points. This increase in the forecasts primarily demonstrates the impulse from financial conditions which turned more positive. Moreover, expectations of stronger core goods consumption also contributed to this increase.

On a year-end basis, the ratings agency expects growth to come in at 2.0% in Q4 2024, reflecting a decline from 3.1% in Q4 2023. Apart from continued sluggishness in the housing and manufacturing sectors, the rating agency views that most recent activity indicators demonstrate that economic growth momentum has been running slightly above trend, even though it moderated since Q4 of the previous year. There has been some softening in the real income growth and there are clear signs of a slowdown in discretionary consumption. However, it expects inflation to slow further over the upcoming months. The labor market normalization supported in bringing down growth in unit labor costs (and improve labor productivity).

Amidst noise in the market, Wall Street experts believe that investors should take a balanced approach to investments.

Our methodology

To list the 10 Undervalued Wide Moat Stocks to Buy According to Analysts, we used the Finviz screener to screen for stocks that are trading lower than the forward earnings multiple of ~23.05x (since broader market trades at 23.05x, as per WSJ). Next, we chose the stocks having wide economic moats. Finally, we ranked the stocks according to their upside potential, as of September 25.

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).

The Walt Disney Company (NYSE:DIS)

Average Upside Potential: 20.94%

Forward P/E Ratio (As of September 25): 17.86x

The Walt Disney Company (NYSE:DIS) operates as an entertainment company worldwide.

The company has a wide economic moat. This stems from the fact it is a conglomerate having a portfolio of treasured brands including Marvel, ESPN, Lucasfilm, and Pixar. These assets ensure that the company remains at the forefront of the entertainment world.

The Walt Disney Company (NYSE:DIS) continues to make significant investments in sports, scripted TV, and movies to aid its streaming platform and is targeting double-digit margins for Disney+. The company has its focus on making investments in sports and high-quality intellectual property (IP). Wall Street believes that the company’s advertising success is expected to be driven by a strong ad market and upfront results.

The future growth of The Walt Disney Company (NYSE:DIS) should stem from investments in the Experiences business, including cruise ships. Moreover, the company remains on track to achieve healthy double-digit margins for the direct-to-consumer segment. The Walt Disney Company (NYSE:DIS)’s licensing strategy continues to focus on monetizing its IP instead of licensing core IP. Therefore, the company’s strong content offerings and streaming services should aid its revenue and earnings growth in the upcoming quarters. Its focus is on driving incremental cost savings.

The Walt Disney Company (NYSE:DIS) released its new full-year adjusted EPS growth target of 30%. The company is on track for the profitability of its combined streaming businesses to improve in Q4 2024, with The Walt Disney Company (NYSE:DIS) expecting Entertainment DTC and ESPN+ to be profitable in Q4.

As per Wall Street, the shares of The Walt Disney Company (NYSE:DIS) have an average price target of $117.65. In Q2, 92 hedge funds held positions in the company, with a total stake valued at $4.76 billion.

Meridian Funds, managed by ArrowMark Partners, released its second quarter 2024 investor letter. Here is what the fund said:

“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 4th on our list of the undervalued wide moat stocks to buy. While we acknowledge the potential of DIS as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that some deeply undervalued AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns, and doing so within a shorter timeframe. If you are looking for a deeply undervalued 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.