3 Reasons I'm Thankful to Be a Disney Shareholder

It's the holiday week to be thankful. I am certainly grateful for my family, friends, and their overall health. Is it wrong to also be thankful for individual stocks? I am grateful to be a Walt Disney (NYSE: DIS) investor, though owning a piece of the House of Mouse hasn't done a whole lot for my financial health in recent years.

Disney stock has fallen over the last year as well the past five years. I still feel thankful. Disney is a big part of why I became an investor in the first place, and of many of the lessons that I've learned along the way. Just as I did for Netflix earlier this week, I want to offer up a few reasons I'm thankful to be a Disney shareholder.

Image source: Disney.

1. You never forget your first stock

I've never been asked this as a security question, so I don't think I'm putting myself at risk by saying that Disney was the first stock that I ever owned. I'm a big fan of how this came to be.

I was a freshman in college, and this girl that I had been dating for several months gave me an unusual gift. She bought me a single share of Disney, which I assure you wasn't as easy to pull off in the 1980s as it is today. She knew Disney was a big part of growing up in my family.

A few years later, I married that girl. Earlier this month we celebrated out 35th wedding anniversary.

It was another four years before I opened a brokerage account and bought another stock, but I think that gift sparked an interest in me for equities. I grew up in a family that favored hard assets. My parents kept their money in the bank, and when they amassed enough they would buy a duplex as a rental property. I carved a different path for myself.

"It was all started by a mouse," Walt Disney once famously said. When it comes to my investing journey, I feel the same way.

2. Sometimes you have to acquire success

Growing up in Florida as a Disney family meant a steady diet of Disney World weekend getaways. But you can't operate the world's busiest theme parks if the content doesn't happen first. Content isn't just king. It's a kingmaker. However, Disney's success today is largely the result of the assets it's picked up along the way.

Disney acquired Capital Cities/ABC in 1996 in a game-changing deal that gave Disney not just ABC but a majority stake in ESPN. A decade later, under CEO Bob Iger, Disney would go on to acquire Pixar, followed by Marvel, Lucasfilm, and Twenty-First Century Fox in subsequent years.

Asking yourself what Disney owns leads to a trail of shopping receipts. Can you imagine Disney without all those assets? It wouldn't be the media stock it is today, with the network and intellectual properties it picked up along the way to round out its empire. Those purchases led to the world's two highest-grossing theatrical releases, as well as this year's likely leader when Avatar: Fire and Ash opens next month.

A company humble enough to realize that there are voids in its toolbox -- and shrewd enough to broker deals to fill them -- is a company worth owning.

3. Invest in what you know

Peter Lynch became one of the most successful mutual fund managers a generation ago with a simple strategy of buying up companies he knew well. He would famously take his family to the mall to see the retail concepts that excited them.

It's fair to say that I am more than just financially invested in the entertainment stock. I'm a charter annual passholder of Disney World, and the only vacation properties that I've ever owned are at its doorstep. About 80% of the cruises that I've taken since the House of Mouse entered the market have been Disney sailings. I consume a lot of non-Disney content -- and often travel to non-Disney parks -- but that also makes me appreciate what Disney has to offer, as well as giving me a stronger grasp of the industry.

I wish I knew the other 44 stocks I currently own as well as I do Disney, but that's where a passion for investing takes over. I am so thankful to be a stock investor in the first place. It was all started by a girl -- and a mouse.

Rick Munarriz has positions in Netflix and Walt Disney. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Netflix and Walt Disney. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.