Latest news with #WaltDisney
CBS News
2 hours ago
- Entertainment
- CBS News
Disneyland offers discounted park tickets for Anaheim residents
People who live in Anaheim will soon get a chance to visit their backyard amusement park at a discounted rate, as Disneyland is offering $70 park tickets to locals. The discounted tickets will be available to Anaheim residents starting Aug. 4, and the deal continues through Sept. 25, 2025. "It's a wonderful time to visit!" the Disneyland website states, as the park celebrates its 70th anniversary. The yearlong 70th birthday celebration includes parades featuring Disney characters and "Paint the Night," a fan favorite making a limited-time comeback for the resort's anniversary. Special festivities also include "Walt Disney – A Magical Life," a show featuring a lifelike animatronic of the company's founder. More than 70 new themed food and beverage items will be available, with throwback menu items like Cowboy Fries and the W.E.D. Chili Cheese Baked Potato. The Anaheim amusement park first opened its gates on July 17, 1955, with 20 attractions in four themed sections: Frontierland, Tomorrowland, Adventureland, and Fantasyland. Entry tickets were $1, and ride tickets, ranging from 10 to 30 cents, were sold separately. The park's founder, Walt Disney, welcomed guests on opening day, saying, "To all who come to this happy place... welcome!" For the discounted Anaheim resident rate, park reservations are required and subject to availability.
Forbes
7 hours ago
- Business
- Forbes
Will Walt Disney Stock Lift After Its Forthcoming Earnings?
Photo byWalt Disney (NYSE:DIS) is scheduled to announce its Q3 FY'25 results around Wednesday, August 6, 2025. Earnings are anticipated to be approximately $1.44 per share, based on consensus estimates, while revenue is expected to increase by about 2.5% to $23.75 billion. Disney+ and the company's broader streaming portfolio are projected to remain significant financial contributors this quarter. Although subscriber growth may be subdued due to recent price increases, Disney has been concentrating on enhancing the profitability of its direct-to-consumer (DTC) operations. In Q2 FY'25, Disney's DTC segment generated operating income of $336 million, compared to just $47 million a year prior, fueled by price increases and higher advertising revenues. The company has also intensified its efforts against password sharing, aiming to convert shared users into paying customers by implementing an extra-member fee starting at $7 per month. Additionally, Disney's experiences segment has been performing well lately, driven by strong attendance at its U.S. parks and increased capacity in the cruising segment, which welcomed the Disney Treasure cruise ship into service late last year. The company boasts a current market capitalization of $218 billion. Revenue for the past twelve months was $94 billion, and it recorded operational profitability, with $14 billion in operating profits and a net income of $8.9 billion. While much will depend on how results compare to consensus and expectations, understanding historical trends may turn the odds in your favor if you are an event-driven trader. There are two approaches to achieve this: understand historical probabilities and position yourself before the earnings release, or analyze the correlation between immediate and medium-term returns following earnings and position yourself accordingly after the earnings are announced. That being said, if you're looking for upside with less volatility than individual stocks, the Trefis High Quality portfolio serves as an alternative – having outperformed the S&P 500 and achieved returns exceeding 91% since its inception. See earnings reaction history of all stocks Walt Disney's Historical Odds of Positive Post-Earnings Return Here are some insights into one-day (1D) post-earnings returns: Further data for observed 5-Day (5D) and 21-Day (21D) returns post earnings is summarized alongside the statistics in the table below. 5-Day (5D) and 21-Day (21D) returns post earnings Correlation Between 1D, 5D, and 21D Historical Returns A relatively less risky approach (though not effective if the correlation is low) is to analyze the correlation between short-term and medium-term returns following earnings, identify a pair with the highest correlation, and perform the appropriate trade. For instance, if 1D and 5D exhibit the highest correlation, a trader can take a 'long' position for the next 5 days if the 1D post-earnings return is positive. Here is some correlation data based on the 5-year and more recent 3-year history. Note that the correlation 1D_5D refers to the relationship between 1D post-earnings returns and subsequent 5D returns. Correlation Between 1D, 5D, and 21D Historical Returns Is There Any Correlation With Peer Earnings? At times, the performance of peers can affect post-earnings stock reactions. In fact, pricing might begin prior to the earnings announcement. Here is some historical data regarding the post-earnings performance of Walt Disney stock compared to the stock performance of peers that reported their earnings just before Walt Disney. For a fair assessment, peer stock returns also reflect post-earnings one-day (1D) returns. Correlation With Peer Earnings Learn more about Trefis RV strategy that has outperformed its all-cap stocks benchmark (a combination of all three: the S&P 500, S&P mid-cap, and Russell 2000), providing strong returns for investors. Additionally, if you seek value with a smoother experience than an individual stock like Walt Disney, consider the High Quality portfolio, which has surpassed the S&P and delivered returns exceeding 91% since its inception.
USA Today
a day ago
- Business
- USA Today
Whether by train, plane or dog sled, the US Postal Service has kept America connected
America's Founding Fathers had the foresight to recognize that an efficient postal service would be an essential tool of democracy. Odds are they didn't envision mailboxes stuffed with grocery ads, prescription medicines and AARP The Magazine. On Saturday, the United States Postal Service will mark 250 years of serving a mission unthwarted by rain, sleet, snow or gloom of night. A key mechanism of an informed citizenry, a building block of U.S. independence and a storied part of American culture, the agency has faithfully delivered letters nationwide, regardless of geographic distance, all for the price of a stamp — even as its challenges to do so without delay or a deficit have grown. 'The post office was created a year before the Declaration of Independence and has been there at every step along the American journey,' said Steve Kochersperger, the agency's postal historian. 'It goes everywhere Americans have gone and keeps us united.' To name a small handful of those who have carried mail to your door: Walt Disney; actors Morgan Freeman, Steve Carell and Rock Hudson; folk singer John Prine, jazz bassist Charles Mingus, vocalist Jason Mraz and guitarist Ace Frehley, a founding member of KISS. But just as it did more than two centuries ago, the postal service faces danger and uncertainty, this time in the face of financial and logistical challenges that threaten to see it privatized or merged with the U.S. Department of Commerce. Such a merger was proposed earlier this year by President Donald Trump, who called USPS "a tremendous loser for this country." According to the U.S. General Accountability Office, the agency has operated at a deficit for the last 15 years, with a net loss of $100 billion since 2007. Meanwhile, costs are outpacing revenue as once dependable First-Class Mail has fallen in volume, among other factors. In spite of its troubles, the postal service trails only the National Park Service in terms of public favor, according to a 2024 Pew Research Center survey. Meanwhile, the agency's new postmaster general, David Steiner, assured postal employees in a video address last week that he supported keeping the agency in its current form. "I do not believe that the Postal Service should be privatized or that it should become an appropriated part of the federal government," he said. "I believe in the current structure of the Postal Service as a self-financing, independent entity of the executive branch." Today, according to its website, the postal service serves nearly 169 million addresses nationwide with a staff of 640,000, the bulk of them career workers, and a fleet of almost 258,000 vehicles. In 2024, the agency handled more than 116 billion pieces of mail, most of it so-called junk mail. 'It was conceived as an expansive public service,' said Cameron Blevins, a professor of history and digital humanities at the University of Colorado Denver. 'It has changed a lot over its history, but that dedication to providing a service to American citizens, regardless of where you live, has been there since the beginning.' On Wednesday, USPS is marking its milestone with two separate stamp releases, including a Forever series depicting a mail carrier on her community rounds and a modern interpretation of a 5-cent stamp, first issued in 1847, that portrays Benjamin Franklin, the nation's first postmaster general. The agency's role is cited in the U.S. Constitution in a clause empowering Congress to establish post offices and their delivery infrastructure. At the time, American democracy was still an experiment in a world of monarchs and empires, dependent on a free exchange of ideas. 'Democracy needed to have informed voters and the post office was integral in making sure they had the information they needed,' said Christopher Shaw, author of 'First Class: The USPS, Democracy and the Corporate Threat.' Notable figures have labored in its service. President Abraham Lincoln served as a local postmaster before pursuing law and politics; so too did Nobel Prize-winning American novelist William Faulkner, though not as effectively. 'He preferred playing cards or leaving early to go golf,' Kochersperger said of Faulkner. While its delivery modes, offerings and workforce have changed throughout the years, its basic mission of ensuring an informed and connected public has not. That tradition endures as books, magazines and newspapers continue to enjoy reduced shipping rates; so do mailings by charities and other nonprofit organizations like arts entities and political advocacy groups. 'If you look at post-Second World War social movements – the civil rights movement, the environmental movement, all those organizations – the main way they raised money and let supporters know what was happening was through the mail,' Shaw said. 'So historically, it's been a bedrock of democracy and getting information.' The agency's role was crucial from the beginning, Kochersperger said. In 1775, as the fight for American independence began, the Second Continental Congress appointed George Washington as commander in chief of the Continental Army. But how to communicate with its military? The American revolutionaries couldn't very well use British-established postal channels for correspondence that would have been seen as treasonous. 'They needed a postal service, so they picked Benjamin Franklin to head that up,' Kochersperger said. Franklin, who'd spent nearly four decades as Philadelphia's postmaster, had a genius for efficiency, Kochersperger said. He devised a system in which military correspondence was delivered by messengers on foot and riders on horseback, forging a major advantage for colonial forces in their war against the British. 'The same orders from London would take two months,' Kochersperger said. 'The postal service was crucial to American independence.' A vital part of Western expansion In 1848, as part of the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, Mexico bequeathed half of its territory following a U.S. war of aggression against its southern neighbor. The U.S. gained what is now California, Nevada, Utah, New Mexico, most of Arizona and parts of four other states. Hundreds of thousands of people streamed into the American West, said Blevins of CU Denver, many pursuing newly discovered gold in California, thousands of miles away from their communities and population centers in the East. Seeking to facilitate their communications with families, neighbors and business associates back home, the U.S. leaned on the postal service to do the job. The agency farmed out some duties to contractor operations such as the famed Pony Express, whose riders delivered mail on horseback from Missouri to California from 1860-61. As contracts and correspondence traveled back and forth across the miles, the postal service served as the connective tissue of Western expansion, carrying news of engagements and growing families, of business booms and busts. 'It did not discriminate on the basis of distance,' said Blevins, whose research focuses on role of the federal government in the American West of the 1800s. 'A gold miner who went to the fields of southwest Colorado, thousands of miles away from his family in say, Ohio, could mail a letter back home for the same price as his cousin living in Ohio a couple of counties away.' Many early post offices were not the familiar standalone government facilities staffed by uniformed workers familiar to people today. Instead, businesses such as general stores collected commissions in exchange for distributing incoming and outgoing mail. 'You would go in and buy flour or coffee,' Blevins said, 'and ask if you had any mail.' Sled dogs and hovercraft In the 1890s, postmaster general Jon Wanamaker, a former retail wizard, pushed for the postal service to expand free mail delivery service to rural areas and conceived the notion of commemorative stamps that people could collect and not necessarily use. Mail was delivered by stagecoach, steamboat and then railway, sorted on board moving trains. Other modes of delivery have included sled dogs, mules, reindeer and hovercraft, but the agency's most transformative upgrade occurred in 1918 with the development of airmail at a time when airports were still a budding concept. 'The post office had to build runways, install radios and train its own pilots,' Kochersperger said. In the 1920s, the postal service again relied on contractors to provide many of those services, forming the foundations of today's airline industry as some providers found they could boost profits by transporting people. 'That really helped kickstart aviation in this country,' Shaw said. 'The majority of early revenues, before passengers, came from transporting U.S. mail.' ZIP codes, introduced in 1963, allowed mail to be more efficiently sorted – and ultimately for American consumers and voters to be categorized and profiled. 'Try to do something today that doesn't involve a ZIP code,' Kochersperger said. 'You can't even order a pizza without a ZIP code.' Postal workers throughout the years have faced various degrees of peril. Franklin's revolutionary mail carriers faced capture by British soldiers. Frontier carriers dodged thieves and robbers. Weather, terrain and faulty equipment posed their own deadly obstacles; flying accidents claimed the lives of 34 airmail pilots from 1918 to 1927. Today, the most common danger is dogs. More than 6,000 dog bite incidents were recorded nationwide in 2024, USPS senior spokesman David Coleman said. 'The best ideals of American democracy' Until 1971, said author Shaw, the post office was a federal department that historically operated at a slight deficit. Postage accounted for most of its revenue, he said, with U.S. Treasury funds making up the difference. Under the Postal Reorganization Act of 1970, the department was restructured as the United States Postal Service, an independent federal agency under executive control, with the idea that it would be self-funded. Recent decades have brought financial struggles, most notably the 2006 Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act, which both limited how the agency could make money and required it to pay billions into a fund to finance future healthcare obligations for retirees. Then came the financial recession and the rise of online bill pay, both of which took a bite out of postal revenue. 'All these things kind of hit at once,' Shaw said. 'On the other side, expanding e-commerce has meant new revenues. There's less mail being delivered but more packages being delivered, so it has balanced out a bit.' While the post office still exists to provide information and communication, it's under more intense financial pressure to do so with Congress no longer offsetting its shortfalls. That has prompted talk of privatization, a move Shaw fears would inhibit the agency's ability to adapt with the times. 'The post office provides a lot of economically inefficient services,' Shaw said. 'A for-profit company would not want to be delivering mail to the most rural Americans. But because the mission of the postal service is to bind the nation together, it provides universal service to everyone.' In that sense, Shaw said, part of the postal service's ongoing legacy is that whatever its flaws, it still embodies the nation's democratic ideals. 'The federal government through the postal service commits to serving everybody equally whether you're rich or poor, rural or urban, whether you live in Alaska or New York City,' he said. 'It's been an expression of the best ideals of American democracy and demonstrated the ability of the government to actually deliver on that promise…. It's still around, and for an institution to exist for 250 years shows there's a reason for it to exist and that it's doing something right.'
Gizmodo
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Gizmodo
Disney Parks Animatronics, Rated Yearbook-Style
Walt Disney is just the latest animatronic to be featured in Disney Parks' experiences and attractions. The figure debuted for Disneyland's 70th birthday at the Main Street Opera House, headlining a new show. In Walt Disney – A Magical Life, you can come face-to-face with the man behind the name, programmed to present his history as Imagineering's latest tech feat. The figure joins the legacy of Disney's contribution to theme park advancements, combining animation and robotics for his animatronics, which started with a bird and now bears the face of its creator. And he's not the only memorable animatronic to grace Disney Parks with his presence. Here are some other notable entries, with yearbook-style superlatives to explain the impressions they make. He's always getting unsuspecting tourists to do coaxium runs for him on the Millennium Falcon. If you're not careful, you'll land on the First Order's suspect list. And unfortunately, if that happens, Hondo might be MIA, just as his animatronic so often is. And only after they try to follow you home first, like the Hitchhiking Ghosts. Dr. Jones spends the entire ride complaining that he has to save our skins; it's glorious. Plus he's the original stuntronic, always having to dangle in front of that incoming boulder. The lore behind her soft-serve-ice-cream-looking hair of yesteryear haunts the internet; we're glad she was able to get her look fixed. Seeing Tiana in her mother's fashions and iconic 1920s New Orleans textiles and textures makes this our pick for best dressed. That goes for the rest of the characters too, especially once the ride gets to its showstopping finale. That Figment, always up to some nonsense, but at least he's full of imagination and lots of surprising sights and smells to discover. It's no contest; being able to meet and greet an interactive Baby Yoda who makes the noises makes us want to protect him at all costs too. Yeah—more like succeeding in leading the animatronic uprising for having to sing that earworm of a song for 70 years. Geoffrey Rush's iconic performance as Captain Barbossa also got its own animatronic inside Disneyland's Pirates of the Caribbean and fits right in so well, many don't realize he's being featured. The real pirate's pirate, our apple-a-day king—he's just missing the monkey, Jack. That's one very realistic animatronic. And like in the Avatar movies, it sees you. They're the OG blueprint of the animatronics, so we'll allow it for another 70 years at least. Spidey does the flips in one of the most thrilling moments at Avengers Campus, where the 'struntronic' flies through the sky before an actor takes over the performance! Even more excitingly, sometimes the robot webslinger misses. This goat is the 'GOAT' 🐐 #Disney #DisneyParks #DisneyWorld #BigThunderMountain #GoatTrick #Goat #Rollercoaster #Coaster #Disney100 ♬ original sound – Disney Parks Not only is it still proudly perched in its spot, it provides the distraction to make the coaster all the more thrilling. Never forget to look at the goat and lock in. Want more io9 news? Check out when to expect the latest Marvel, Star Wars, and Star Trek releases, what's next for the DC Universe on film and TV, and everything you need to know about the future of Doctor Who.
Travel Weekly
2 days ago
- Entertainment
- Travel Weekly
Disney animation coming to life in new Hollywood Studios attraction
The Walt Disney World Resort in Florida is creating a new experience, The Magic of Disney Animation, at Disney's Hollywood Studios. It is expected to open in 2026. The experience is based on the 2023 short film "Once Upon a Studio," in which Disney characters step into the halls of the Walt Disney Animation Studios in Burbank, Calif., for a group photo. At Hollywood Studios, "guests will step into a whimsical twist on the real-life studio building, but this time, when the animators are away, the characters come out to play," Disney said in a release. A new experience, The Magic of Disney Animation, will open at Disney's Hollywood Studios next year. Photo Credit: Disney The Magic of Disney Animation will be located in the building currently housing Star Wars: Launch Bay. To make way for the new experience, the Launch Bay, as well as Animation Courtyard and Disney Jr. Play and Dance!, will close on Sept. 25. However, The Little Mermaid — A Musical Adventure and Walt Disney Presents will still be open. When The Magic of Disney Animation opens, the building will be topped with Mickey's sorcerer's hat. Inside, guests will visit different animation studio departments, like the Production Gallery. There, portraits will come to life like they do in the short film. The Screening Theater will feature a short film. An indoor playground, Drawn to Wonderland, will feature an oversized flower garden with musical instruments, an area inspired by Tulgey Wood and a Mad Tea Party playset. The area was inspired by Disney Legend Mary Blair's concept art for "Alice in Wonderland" The space will also feature character meet-and-greets as well as the opportunity to learn how to draw favorite characters. A rendering of The Walt Disney Studios space and the building housing The Magic of Disney Animation. When the attraction opens, the building will be topped with Mickey's sorcerer's hat. Photo Credit: Disney Animation Courtyard itself will also undergo renovations. The new outdoor space will be called The Walt Disney Studios, featuring seating, landscaping and some surprises. Trent Correy and Dan Abraham, directors of "Once Upon a Studio," are working on the project. "Working on this film was the highlight of my career — the most fun I've ever had," Abraham said. "And now, to collaborate with the wonderful talents at Walt Disney Imagineering to bring the short and our studio to guests in this exciting way is beyond our wildest dreams."
