What a day and a year it has been for Disney (DIS). The company’s stock is up over 4% today, which is the type of one day gain it has only seen three other times in the last four years. While the stock is not quite at an all-time high on an intraday basis, if the current levels hold into the close, it will be the highest closing price for the stock on record.

(Click on image to enlarge)

Shares of Disney are currently up over 29% YTD, putting it on pace for its best YTD performance (through 6/13) since 2000. The table below lists all years in which Disney shares were up 25% or more through this date in the year going back to 1980. For the nine prior years shown, we also show how DIS performed from 6/13 through year-end as well as how the stock performed for the entire year. As the results indicate, there is no clear pattern for the stock following strong starts for the year in the first half. In the nine prior years shown, the stock was up 10%+ four times, down 10%+ four times, and basically flat once!

(Click on image to enlarge)

One decade out of the last four that was exceptionally strong for DIS was the 1980s. Of the nine prior years highlighted in the above table, five of them were in the 1980s. All those strong years add up. In that decade alone, the stock was up 918%, even after a decline of 17% in the final 12 weeks of 1989. Without that last sell-off to close out the decade, DIS would have been up over 1,120%. 

(Click on image to enlarge)