What's going on?

Walt Disney was the most magical place in the world on Friday � the entertainment and media company�s stock rose 2% following better-than-expected quarterly results. All beauty, no beast.

What does this mean?

Disney�s quarterly sales increased by 12% beyond the same time last year, beating analyst expectations, while profit rose by 33%. The good news can be credited to Mouseketeers flooding its theme parks during the summer months and gluing their eyes to Marvel movies like Ant-Man and the Wasp.

The house of Mouse has Netflix and Amazon Prime in its sights with its own streaming platform, Disney+. The service will be launched in the US late next year and will include film, TV and online content from 21st Century Fox, too � which Disney recently bought for $71 billion.

Why should I care?

For markets: Fox�s final flourish.

On Wednesday, Fox shared its own earnings � and they were a mixed bag. While its film division didn�t do as well as hoped, it was partly offset by the attraction of the World Cup and the US midterm elections, which helped to drive advertising growth in its cable division. It�s this unit of Fox�s business that excites Disney�s investors as it complements Disney�s already buff entertainment offering. At a time when Americans are killing their cable subscriptions and spending more time online, older media companies like Disney probably need to adapt, or risk irrelevance.

The bigger picture: No one is perfect.

Fox is paying off in Disney�s den, but the same can�t be said for the company�s other digital bets. Disney wrote-down its investment in Vice Media (i.e. it slashed its assessment of what the company�s worth). Since sales growth had stalled at the former punk magazine, and profit was still a pipe dream (the company�s trying to cut costs), Disney decided to lower its valuation of Vice by almost $160 million.