US earnings preview: Disney, Uber

(Video Transcript)

US earnings peak

We've now passed the peak of the US earnings season for the fourth quarter (Q4).

The market is still awaiting a few big numbers to come this week. And let's start first of all, with tomorrow. We've got Hertz Global. Wednesday we've got Walt Disney and Uber Technologies. Thursday, Philip Morris International. PepsiCo and Lyft.

Walt Disney chart

But let's take a look in some detail, a couple of those stocks I wanted to take a look at what's going on with Walt Disney, first of all, at the upcoming results to be published on Wednesday after the US markets closed.

This will mark the first quarter with Bob Iger back at the helm. This is the chart for Disney. The vertical dotted line is the point at which Bob Iger came back into the business and you can see a bit of weakness following on from that. We've seen liftoff since the lows that we had back on 29 December.

It has been a storming start to 2023 for the stock of Disney. And this line here, which is the high that we saw in trade last Thursday at 11360, when it reports earnings on Wednesday that the stock, if it does see some strong earnings coming through, I can easily see this area of resistance being beaten and we'll have to see what happens.

Bob Iger was called back following the immediate dismissal of Bob Chapek. Iger had previously served as CEO of the group from 2005 to 2020. So far as the numbers are concerned, analysts expect earnings of $0.79 a share on revenues of $23.3 billion. Subscription numbers for Disney+, Hulu and ESPN will again be the main focus of the event I suspect.

The Group's Parks and Recreation Services had a big return to growth in 2022 as people came back out after the lockdowns and markets will be looking to see whether the group managed to keep momentum going.

Uber chart

The other chart I think it's worth looking at is that of Uber Technologies and indeed on Friday we have seen this move up that we saw at the back end of last week, the highest intraday print since the 15th of September. And the best close that we've seen in five months for Uber technologies.

Uber recorded a net loss of $1.2 billion, $512 million of which was attributable to revelations of equity investments. However, the company beat estimates for revenue, which grew by 72% year-over-year and reported adjusted EBIDTA exceeded its guidance of $440 million to $470 million. So I think that's a good reason to look positively into these numbers.

As for the fourth quarter, the market expects a loss per share of $0.18 on revenues of almost $8.5 billion. The market will also be closely looking for the number of monthly active users, the number of trips and the number of customers who have subscribed to Uber 1. So some of the data points to watch out for for those two companies reporting earnings on Wednesday.