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Posted
May 16 2008, 09:09 AM
by
Andrew Horowitz
Rating:
After the recent merger with EB Games, GameStop is by far the No. 1 specialty retailer that focuses on the new and used video game market. The company has a total of 4,400 active stores in virtually every state and in 15 countries.
Revenue has been on the rise as the hot gaming market continues to grow exponentially. The latest editions of Rock Band, Guitar Hero, Halo 3 and the blockbuster Grand Theft Auto IV are all extraordinarily popular on every gaming platform.
But how will Gamestop continue to thrive in the face of significant competition from discount retailers such as Target and Wal-Mart? What’s more, the bulk-retailers are also selling video games in a time when
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Posted
Apr 29 2008, 03:57 AM
by
Kim Peterson
Rating:
The biggest video game of the year debuts today (actually it came out at midnight), and publisher Take-Two Interactive shares have seen a 5% run since April 3. "Grand Theft Auto IV" has been getting rave reviews, which have pushed up Take-Two stock, and you can expect to hear a lot about it in the next few weeks.
I think I liked this sentence from the New York Times' review the best: "'Grand Theft Auto IV' is a violent, intelligent, profane, endearing, obnoxious, sly, richly textured and thoroughly compelling work of cultural satire disguised as fun." Take-Two shares closed at $26.47 Monday.
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Posted
Apr 14 2008, 06:07 AM
by
Douglas McIntyre
Filed under: Microsoft, Cisco, Yahoo, E*Trade, Intel, Sirius, XM Satellite Radio, JetBlue, Dell, Take-Two Interactive, Electronic Arts
Rating:
Most companies on Nasdaq did fairly well with the shorts in the two-week period which ended on March 31. The two tremendous exceptions were Level 3, where short interest moved up 20.3 million shares to 243.9 million, and Sirius, where shares sold short jumped 40.4 million to 137.8 million.
In a tough stock market and credit environment, it is not hard to see why investors would place bets against both companies. Each stock trades near its 52-week low. Level 3 recently pushed out its president. Although it is in an attractive business, bandwidth infrastructure, it is a patch-work of M&A work with a large amount of debt and almost no cash-flow. In other words, a liquidation candidate in a deep recession.
Sirius is also hurt by a high debt-load -- over $1.2 billion -- and negative operating income. If the company's merger with XM Satellite does not go through, it may not be able to survive as a standalone company either.
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Posted
Mar 04 2008, 03:56 AM
by
Kim Peterson
Rating:
"Grand Theft Auto IV" comes out April 29, and I can't wait. It's the next installment in the controversial, violent, mayhem-filled series, and it will become the year's top-selling video game. Those who haven't played GTA are often mortified by the carjacking, cop-killing and other nefarious shenanigans it offers. But these games sell because above all else, they're unbelievably fun. (The new title will surely be rated "mature," so don't let the little ones get their hands on it.)
The upcoming game is a huge reason why Electronic Arts is making a major, and slightly hostile, play for GTA publisher Take-Two Interactive. EA offered $2 billion for Take-Two last month -- $26 a share, up from an earlier offer of $25 a share -- and was flatly rejected. Take-Two called the offer "the wrong price at the wrong time." Its shares, in the $16 range before EA's offer was made public, closed at $26.20 Monday.
Take-Two is smart to reject such a low offer. But how much is the company worth? A Wedbush Morgan analyst thinks EA should walk away if Take Two continues to thumb its nose. But Cowan's Doug Creutz thinks EA is justified in going as high as $32 a share. A Take-Two investor wants $33 a share.
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Posted
Dec 19 2007, 03:52 AM
by
Kim Peterson
Rating:
This year has been a disaster for some tech companies. Oh sure, it's been a fabulous ride for Apple, Amazon and Google.
But this post is about the losingest losers out there. The train wrecks. The Lindsay Lohans of technology. Here are the companies, and their "oops" moments, that made 2007 memorable:
Yahoo
Share performance: Down 30% since the end of October.
Oops moment: Launching a public soul-searching in the form of a 100-day self-examination to craft a strategic plan.
What happened: The 100 days ended with no big announcements. Yahoo is too large and too laden by its own bureaucracy to be nimble. What's more, the company lost valuable search market share to Google this year.
Chance of recovery in 2008: Moderate. Yahoo is overhauling some core services, including e-mail and photo, but has been unable to monetize a user base that numbers some 475 million. Lots more work to do.
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