Walt Disney Stock Ends Tuesday at All-Time Closing High

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Walt Disney's stock finished Tuesday's trading session at an all-time closing high of $49.35 after a well-known analyst upgraded the stock and touted the outlook for the entertainment conglomerate.

Shares of Disney, led by CEO Bob Iger, went as high as $49.92 during the day before closing up 3.1 percent. Bloomberg News said that was the stock's biggest gain in four months.

Disney's stock is now up 32 percent for the year to-date. Its market value at the end of Tuesday's trading session stove at $88.2 billion.

Bank of America/Merrill Lynch analyst Jessica Reif Cohen upgraded her rating on Disney's stock from "neutral" to "buy" and boosted her price target on the stock from $45 to $58, predicting further upside despite a run-up this year.

She said in a report that her earnings estimates are above the Wall Street average, according to Bloomberg. She touted profit upside thanks to the company’s theme parks, improving film unit trends, declining interactive unit losses and continued cable networks strength, it said.

Also on Tuesday, Sanford C. Bernstein analyst Todd Juenger said that the Viacom-DirecTV carriage dispute could benefit some of the Disney cable channels. "Nickelodeon's Loss is Disney's Gain," he said in the title of his report.