Netflix passed Disney in market value Thursday, just one day after its stock surge pushed it higher than Comcast’s valuation. But the victory was a short one, with Disney’s $152.03 billion value barely edging out Netflix’s $151.85 billion worth, when the markets closed.
Finishing with a record high stock price for a second straight day, Netflix closed up 1.34 % at $349.33 per share. That coincided with an 0.87% dip in Disney stock leaving it at $102 a share.
Netflix’s eclipsing of Disney—however brief the moment was—is a watershed moment for the media, as a purely digital company has surpassed a studio that dates back to the Golden Age of movie-making.
Disney, for its part, isn’t standing pat. The Hollywood giant has been trying to buy 21st Century Fox for some time, but Comcast is reportedly in the mix to sully the deal. Should Disney succeed, it will completely upend the economics of the industry, at least in terms of valuations.
An interesting aside is that landing Fox will not only give Disney more original content to load into its forthcoming streaming service, but it will also increase its ownership stake in Netflix-competitor Hulu. That’s one reason that no one at the streaming media company is celebrating anything, yet.
