Business | May 11th 2024 Edition

Disney reported that its Disney+ and Hulu streaming services had made a combined operating profit of $47m in the three months ending March 30th, a huge improvement on the $587m loss in the same quarter last year. The overall loss from streaming, including ESPN, in the recent quarter narrowed to just $18m. To boost business Disney announced a new streaming bundle in America that will include programming from Warner Bros Discovery. But the lack of profitability at the streaming division remains a source of investor discontent. After the company dampened expectations for growth in the current quarter, its share price tumbled by nearly 10%.

By contrast, the stock of UBS leapt by 10% after it reported a quarterly net profit of $1.8bn, well above market forecasts. The Swiss bank gained from soaring revenues at its wealth-management business and investment banking. It also lowered the estimate of losses it expects to incur from the toxic parts of the business it inherited from Credit Suisse.