CNBC’s Jim Cramer was taken aback when shares of Disney and Walmart got slammed after the companies announced new investments.
Shares of Disney closed down nearly 2 percent on Wednesday after the entertainment giant revealed that it was spending heavily to boost ESPN Plus’ online offerings.
Walmart’s stock also lost more than 3 percent of its value Wednesday after agreeing to take a majority stake in Flipkart, an Indian e-commerce company.
But Cramer wouldn’t cave to the sellers’ fears. He pointed to what Disney CFO Christine McCarthy said on the company’s conference call: that investing in its technology platform would allow Disney to “monetize much more programming than ESPN can now.”
He also flagged the company’s latest earnings report, which saw 21 percent studio revenue growth thanks to the box office successes of “Black Panther” and “Avengers: Infinity War.”
“So often you hear movie companies talk about how they have hit machines, but they’re often episodic properties that are very much hit or miss. Not Disney,” Cramer said. “It’s extraordinary and yet no one seems to care right now.”
“The stock got hammered, of course, because Disney’s investing in the future,” he continued. “I think it’s crazy.”
In the case of Walmart, Cramer highlighted the power of taking a $16 billion, 77 percent stake in Flipkart. In India, the platform is No. 1 in fashion, No. 1 in large appliances and No. 2 in electronics sales, he said.
Yet “just like Disney, Walmart’s stock is getting whacked because the company’s investing in its future,” the “Mad Money” host said.
Cramer lamented that companies like Amazon, Netflix and Tesla seem to “get a free pass” when they make large investments in their businesses while Disney and Walmart, “trapped by the four walls of the spreadsheet,” get criticized.
“No one is holding Amazon to a profit standard, just a growth standard,” he said, noting how often Netflix CEO Reed Hastings and Tesla CEO Elon Musk talk about spending more than their companies can afford to stay ahead.
Disney and Walmart, Cramer said, are “hostages to the need to beat earnings estimates. Tesla, Netflix and Amazon, measured by growth, have no limit to how much they can spend.”
So, in the face of the stock market’s seemingly unfair judgments, Cramer suggested investors stick to their convictions and see Disney and Walmart’s “bold” investments for what they are.
“Walmart and Disney are all the richer for these investments. Just don’t tell it to the sellers — they don’t want to hear it,” Cramer said. “But, hey, their mistake [is] your buying opportunity.”
