Disney
leads media decliners
In addition, AOL Time Warner was down another 4 percent after dropping 14 percent Tuesday on news of a bleak outlook for its America Online division.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average stepped back 58 points to 8,684, the Nasdaq Composite lost 26 points to 1,422, and advancers led decliners 15 to 9 on the New York Stock Exchange. See Market Snapshot.
Dow component Disney (DIS: news, chart, profile) fell $1.27 to $17.27 in recent action, on strong volume of 3 million shares. The company said after the market closed Tuesday that it overstated its pretax 2002 profit by $74 million because it overestimated the box-office performance of the animated feature, "Treasure Planet."
Separately, the company said the SEC is looking into an August amendment to the company's 2001 10K filing. Disney said the amendment was not related to company accounting practices and that the SEC has not indicated it is looking at the company's accounting practices. See full story.
AOL (AOL: news, chart, profile) gave up 66 cents to $13.55. Analyst Richard Bilotti at Morgan Stanley downgraded the shares of AOL Time Warner to "equal weight" from "overweight," citing expectations of a "modest" rebound for the company's America Online. He also cut his price target to $16 to $18 from $20. We believe that AOL has achieved its goal of 'resetting the base' regarding investor expectations for 2003," Bilotti said in a note to clients. "However, several trends suggest that the growth in 2004 and beyond will be modest."