Daily's Pre-Market: Disney's earnings and stake in Epic Games, Warner Music, NYCB, and SoftBank.

Disney beats earnings estimates, hikes guidance as it slashes streaming losses

• Disney beat quarterly earnings estimates and raised its guidance as it saw progress in its effort to cut costs.

• The company slashed its streaming business losses.

• The results come as the company faces pressure from activist investor Nelson Peltz and Blackwells Capital.

Disney to take $1.5 billion stake in Epic Games, work with Fortnite maker on new content

• Disney is investing $1.5 billion for an equity stake in Epic Games in its biggest jump yet into the gaming world.

• The media giant will work with the Fortnite gaming studio on new games and an entertainment universe.

• Disney has previously collaborated with Epic to bring characters from Marvel, Star Wars, “The Nightmare Before Christmas,” “Tron” and more to Fortnite.

Warner Music to cut 600 jobs, or 10% of staff

• Warner Music announced 600 layoffs in a plan to restructure the company and cut costs.

• The company expects the layoffs to save about $200 million in costs.

NYCB names new chairman after Moody’s downgrades bank’s credit rating to junk

• New York Community Bank on Wednesday promoted its chairman to help stabilize the company’s operations.

• Late Tuesday Moody’s Investors Service downgraded NYCB’s credit ratings two notches to junk.

• The regional bank has been in free fall, shedding more than 50% of its market value across a punishing series of trading sessions, since reporting a surprise fourth-quarter loss last week.

SoftBank nets $20 billion on Arm earnings pop, exceeding its total losses in WeWork

• Masayoshi Son’s SoftBank booked a more than $16 billion gain on its Arm stock, based on the chip designer’s surge in after-hours trading.

• SoftBank controls roughly 90% of shares outstanding.

• The SoftBank Vision Fund lost a total of just over $14 billion on its WeWork bet.