Shares of Cinemark Holdings Inc. CNK climbed 1.6% toward a 2 1/2-month high in afternoon trading Thursday, after the Texas-based movie theater chain was upgraded at Credit Suisse a day before it reports fourth-quarter results. Analyst Douglas Mitchelson raised his rating on the stock to neutral, to back away from his previous bearish stance, and boosted his price target by 33%, to $12 from $9. “With 4Q22’s soft U.S. Box Office effectively in the rear-view mirror, we update our film-by-film tracking for 2023 and find [Wall] Street expectations for Cinemark are now reasonable, at least for 1H23,” Mitchelson wrote in a note to clients. “Further, the return of Bob Iger as CEO of Walt Disney is supportive of the film industry, in particular potentially lengthening the box office window, and/or reinserting a home video window prior to streaming debuts, and a move which peers might follow given the newfound focus on media profits over streaming [subscriptions].” Cinemark is slated to report quarterly results before Friday’s open. The FactSet consensus for fourth-quarter per-share losses is currently 32 cents and for revenue is $572.2 million. Over the past eight quarters, the company has reported a wider-than-expected loss six times, even as revenue beat expectations in each of the past eight quarters. The stock has lost 6.1% over the past three months, while Walt Disney Co.’s stock DIS has gained 2.0% and the S&P 500 SPX has slipped 0.9%.
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