Game stocks regain ground in market rally

EA, Activision, THQ, Ubisoft, Sony, and Microsoft partially recover from yesterday's fiscal boot party on Wall Street.

Yesterday was one of the worst days on Wall Street in decades, with markets crashing after the US Congress voted down a $700 billion rescue plan. UK-based newspaper The Daily Telegraph estimated corporate losses as being worth as much as the entire economy of India, with the Dow Jones industrial average shedding 777 points--the biggest one-day point drop in its history.

Also pummeled was the NASDAQ average, where most game-related stocks are traded. Luckily, when the closing bell rang this afternoon, the NASDAQ Composite Index had climbed 4.97 percent after falling 9.14 percent the day before. The rising tide took many game stocks along with it, with the biggest third-party publisher, Activision Blizzard, getting back $1.31 per share (9.28 percent) of the $2.26 it lost Monday to close at $15.43.

Acti-Blizz's nemesis Electronic Arts also recouped some of the $3.63, or 9.16 percent, that was shaved off of its share price Monday, closing up $0.99 (2.75 percent) at $36.99. Though still far below its asking price back when it was an EA takeover target, Take-Two more than recovered the 4.52 percent ($0.73) cleaved of its stock yesterday, ending the day up $0.97, or 6.29 percent, at $16.40. THQ trimmed its $0.87-per-share slip somewhat by regaining $0.56 (4.88 percent) to close at $12.04.

Though games are just a small part of its business, Xbox 360-maker Microsoft rallied as well, regaining $1.68 (6.72 percent) to reach $26.69 as the NASDAQ closing bell tolled. The day prior, the software giant's worth shrunk 8.72 percent, or $2.39 per share. Unfortunately, over on the New York Stock Exchange, Sony Corp. posted a tiny $0.11 per share gain, barely denting the $1.65-per-share blow it took on the corporate chin at the week's start.

Overseas, yesterday's biggest loser was French publisher Ubisoft, which saw €12.47 ($17.92) lopped off its share price. Today, it bounced back by €7.25 ($10.23) to close at €48.80 ($68.84). Eidos parent SCi Entertainment ended the day up £1.75 ($3.12) at £28.50 ($50.75), blunting the £3.75 ($6.75) wound inflicted on it the day before.

152 Comments

  • Thrash2kill

    Posted Oct 9, 2008 6:29 am PT

    Gatts, where are you from? I'd really love to know. I'm sure wherever it is your governments is much less corrupt and your people are far from possessive, greedy, and opportunistic. In fact I'm positive your country is the only one not affected but the tide of globalization. I'm sure you live a life of thoughtfulness of others, respect for the planet.

    Stop judging people because of the invisible borders they live in. Some of us work hard everyday to do the right thing, other not so much but don't generalize us, or anyone for that matter. We're not SUV driving, flag waving, cowboys. So if you want to talk about learning from history, why don't start reading up on some yourself. If you do, I promise the next time your post a comment you won't sound like such a ignorant, ill informed prick

  • piotr1

    Posted Oct 8, 2008 1:12 am PT

    thank you geaorge bush , well when you elect a clown to run the most powerful country in the world what do you think will happen,

  • Lisandro_v22

    Posted Oct 7, 2008 6:39 pm PT

    what are u, santa claus?

  • Cant-Get-Right

    Posted Oct 7, 2008 6:11 pm PT

    Ohohoho! It funny because Bush sucks! Ohohoho and its funny because EA would suck then! Ohohoho

  • Lisandro_v22

    Posted Oct 7, 2008 3:27 pm PT

    Bush is to economy what EA is to videogames

  • skate_n_game

    Posted Oct 5, 2008 4:06 pm PT

    I agree with both statements below. Solely blaming Bush for this crisis is beyond childish....

  • snakes3425

    Posted Oct 4, 2008 2:05 pm PT

    These days it's easier to blame everyone but yourself for your failures. It's easier to point to Bush, Corperate Interests, the Rich or find some vast conspiricy to blame for the mess we're in but what about the people who took out those loans knowing full well they couldn't pay them back, and then spent the money on stuff they couldn't afford or didn't need and went back for more? Do they deserve a bailout even though those loans they took out are the cause of the problem.
    When a bank goes under, everyone who had money in that bank, wheather they have good credit or not, and everyone who works there, executive and joe shmoe loses their jobs.
    People are against the bill because they hate the idea of paying extra to keep banks afloat, but they change their tone when it's their own job or finances that are on the line.

  • thepyrethatburn

    Posted Oct 4, 2008 1:49 pm PT

    *Sigh* Okay, first, while it is tempting to blame Bush, it is inaccurate. This crisis has been in the making for 13 years and many say for even longer.

    Take Glass-Stegall being repealed. Some would say "Clinton signed it into law so it's his fault" Not so fast. The effort to repeal the act was led by Phil Gramm and James Leach, both of whom were Republicans. "Ah, so it's actually the Republicans." Hold on there. The act's repeal got a veto-proof majority from both parties. This means that both parties overwhelmingly approved of this.

    The above example is just one of a number of efforts that the government did to help bring about this crisis. There is enough blame on both ends of the aisle that saying "It's all Bush's fault" is simply childish.

    Now Yuck and Dark have debated most of the salient points of the bailout so I won't repeat. I tend to side with Yuck on this. All this bailout is going to do is draw out a mild recession for a while until we are finally unable to support this shell game that we have going on and the whole thing collapses only, by then, we won't have any resources in reserve to recover. I would have preferred that we had just bit the bullet and accepted a year or two of pain but that's not what this bill was about.
    This bill was about the lobbyists and corporate interests who have bought our representatives. Members of the House and Senate kept saying "The people want this bill." is that so? Why has EVERY opinion poll been overwhelmingly against this bailout then?
    What this bill boiled down to is that the corporate interests who have been "donating" to the campaigns of our representatives have been telling them "You owe us. Time to pay up." Our representatives are okay with this because it's not their money that's being flushed down the toilet. They also know that, by the time elections swing around, the American public (being far more concerned with American Idol results than our government) will vote in the same two parties that they always have. Yeah, some of them may lose their jobs but the idea of any form of meaningful change is a bedtime story that people tell their children at this point.

  • hiway2hell

    Posted Oct 4, 2008 6:47 am PT

    Bush did sign the bailout

  • sakaiXxX

    Posted Oct 4, 2008 3:51 am PT

    it's u who u choose your leader and what a stupid choice u made.........Damn u who voted for bush!!!

  • Zerosumgame

    Posted Oct 3, 2008 8:12 am PT

    I am surprised that GDP of India is actually higher than Australia and South Korea.

  • Shorty_wTF

    Posted Oct 3, 2008 2:33 am PT

    cool

  • tawagivercetti

    Posted Oct 2, 2008 11:09 pm PT

    fools

  • senorbusyman

    Posted Oct 2, 2008 7:51 pm PT

    At least Wii all know who 2 blame 4 this. BUSH! "U RUINED OUR ECONOMY, & OUR COUNTRY"! DAMN U!

  • fatmike2127

    Posted Oct 2, 2008 2:22 pm PT

    the US better come up with a good bill to save their asses from being brought into another depression. i guess it's good that some of the game market bounced back

  • Yuck_Too

    Posted Oct 2, 2008 1:16 pm PT

    You say I'm wrong, and maybe it's not as bad as I think, but we've been debating this North American economy for the better part of a year now...at least you've finally seen the writing on the walls for the impending recession.

    I find it funny how people say this is bad but it's not the great depression, and then say the solutions that worked for that will work for this.

    Or how they also say that this is not as bad as the last stock market crash and that things were worse then, yet they bring out much more drastic measures to fix it this time compared to last, how come?

    I don't know if you listened to the Senators last night but when Nevada stood up and said how 80% of the state small business only existed because of the credit they were allowed I actually laughed.

    If that is actually the situation and that is a similar deal across America, where 2/3 - 3/4 of your businesses exist in a state of over drawn limits...Ya, nothing wrong with that, prop the system up and point to the sunny skies ahead, and above all else keep on spending money you don't have so the books show upswings.


    I see the credit problem, only difference is the people in power, government, bankers, they think the solution is to get that credit growing again, whereas I see the problem being the credit itself.

    Buffet made a telling remark today, seems his businesses are doing fine and the reason he gave for that is he demands they stand on their own regardless of what happens in the scheme of things. One of the most successful businessman on the planet doesn't believe in credit growing business. He also seems to feel the situation is a lot worse then people acknowledge.


    So here is my prediction, the Bill will pass Friday, to the long term detriment of the world, and stock markets will bounce back to where they once were, in fact I bet they go even higher because it's all over and life is back on track.


    Once that happens my advice to people is pull every dime you got invested in anything even remotely connected to this. It should be sold and moved into almost anything else, GIC's, heck savings accounts will get you 4% anything secure, because while there might be a few more years before the beast fails when it does you want to be long gone. I actually pulled all mine back in January like I said I was, if the bill by some miracle does fail tomorrow I may have to start putting it all back in.

  • darkride66

    Posted Oct 2, 2008 11:10 am PT

    @ Yuck_Too. I guess we'll have to agree to disagree. To me it just seems that you don't know enough about the issue, because you couldn't be more wrong in my opinion. But having had the pleasure of debating with you in the past I know that you're responses are well thought out and you do take time to get informed. I just think you're 100% incorrect on this one. The US financial system was greatly improved after the Savings and Loan crisis after the passing of the Financial Institutions Reform, Recovery, and Enforcement Act of 1989. Once all the dust has settled from this fallout we'll see something similar happen, to furthur tighten up regulation. This is needed and will happen, but first we have to prevent a system collapse. That's just a no brainer to me.

  • Yuck_Too

    Posted Oct 2, 2008 10:04 am PT

    --darkride66--
    It's not going to be any stronger in any shape way or form...it's just going to be bigger.

    It's like playing a game of Jenga where you take blocks from the bottom and put them on the top, and you keep building everything, up higher is better.

    But then the bottom falls out, except now people are adding blocks to the game to support the bottom.

    Yet nothing about the game itself has changed, once it's "secure" they will start the building it higher once again.

    The economic foundation of the US is beyond weak, and while they can brace it up, all it does is set it up for an even larger fall next time.

    I truly hope the bill fails to pass in the House. Sure it will hurt, but the US will come out stronger and healthier for it. If the bill passes it won't hurt as much but it's going to be that much more catastrophic down the road when it fails again.

  • darkride66

    Posted Oct 2, 2008 8:45 am PT

    @ Yuck_too. It worked for the Savings and Loans crisis, it'll work now and their system will be stronger for it. Far from perfect, but certainly stronger.

  • Yuck_Too

    Posted Oct 2, 2008 8:08 am PT

    --darkride66--
    Well it's not a totally done deal...House still needs to vote, though they will probably pass it.

    Still there is some hope it gets shot down instead of trying to prop up their economic house of cards by throwing more cards into the pile.

  • darkride66

    Posted Oct 2, 2008 5:39 am PT

    @ phoenix_style. Doesn't matter now, it's going through and now everyone can attempt to get back to business. The coming recession should be a brief one, maybe a couple of quarters, the housing market will hit bottom and then the economy will slowly start over again. From a historical perspective, returns in the stock market one year after a bear market average 30%. Good hunting!

  • phoenix_style

    Posted Oct 1, 2008 11:48 pm PT

    I can't believe that the government voted against the rescue plan, all because of a stupid grudge.

  • VirginFingers

    Posted Oct 1, 2008 5:14 pm PT

    Since when do world wide events count only as polotics? If Gamespot put a McCain promo up, or a soundbite of an Obama rally, then yes.

    They story is tied in with games why? Becuase game companies have stock, and when Wall St falls, that includes game companies. Burry your head in the sand about global concerens, because you consider it an offense to have to read about them when all you want is gametralers.

    Grow Up.

  • zunit88

    Posted Oct 1, 2008 5:05 pm PT

    ppl if you are not interisted dont read the article insted of complaining about the "games not politics" !!!

  • maverick_76

    Posted Oct 1, 2008 2:59 pm PT

    This makes sense because when people can't handle reality they try and escape to another world like gaming. Right now there are lots of people that cannot handle what is happening as we see from the stocks plunge on Monday. My personal belief is we need to change how the United States handles business from a regulation standpoint to stop these people on Wall Street from overspending and over speculating the market. If we don't put stricter punishment on the guilty they will continue with these bad practices that allow short term profits and long term instability.

  • Ice_man_1985

    Posted Oct 1, 2008 2:55 pm PT

    good news

  • Hoski0999

    Posted Oct 1, 2008 2:46 pm PT

    Said it right darkride

  • darkride66

    Posted Oct 1, 2008 2:41 pm PT

    To those being critical of people discussing the issue, here's an idea, don't read the article, don't read the comments. We're sorry if the world's current financial crisis that has the potential to impact every single last one of us momentarily distracted you from your search for Call of Duty 5 screen pics while you take a break from surfing for porn and rest up your right arm. How inconsiderate of those of us who realize just how important an issue this is.

  • Hoski0999

    Posted Oct 1, 2008 2:28 pm PT

    @themc7

    your an idiot, games cost money, market crashes companies loose money, no money, no games. GO TO SCHOOL YOU'LL LEARN SOMETHING

  • themc_7

    Posted Oct 1, 2008 2:05 pm PT

    games! not polictics!!

  • darkride66

    Posted Oct 1, 2008 1:50 pm PT

    @ Yuck_Too. Housing prices have nothing to do with it. We're talking about existing homes and existing mortgages, and 95% of those will be just fine according to the analysts. You're right, the housing slide hasn't seen bottom yet but that has nothing to do with the current financial crisis.
    Also, remember that the banks really didn't know the risks. They were legistlated, by the government to start loaning to people they wouldn't let in the door before, all in the name of providing "affordable housing." At the time it was believed that the government, through Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac would take all those mortgages off their hands, no problems, and roll them into nice, safe securitized investements. Obviously that didn't happen and the government, the lenders and the people who lined up to take on more than they could handle are all to blame. So here we are. It sucks. Now what? Someone has to hold their nose and clean up the mess and that's exactly what will happen, new regulations will be put in place, heads will roll and the financial system as a whole will be better for the whole, painful experience.

  • Pete5506

    Posted Oct 1, 2008 1:49 pm PT

    Well its good to hear

  • Dman0017

    Posted Oct 1, 2008 1:00 pm PT

    i am sick of politics, and i come to this site for games NOT politics

  • Yuck_Too

    Posted Oct 1, 2008 12:46 pm PT

    Except for the problem of there are far too many house on the market that are still over-valued.

    Entire neighborhoods are empty, and until those homes filter though the system how do you plan to get the housing system back on track.

    Latest estimates are there could be as many as a 5-years worth of excess housing currently on the market.

    And the government is going to hold the worst of the lot.

    What happens when those house become derelict, which some have already been declared as...what happens when those "rock bottom" prices become truly worthless?

    That debt will be added into the national deficit and that means it will be the tax-payers who find it on their shoulders with no money for the things they actually needed.

  • darkride66

    Posted Oct 1, 2008 12:34 pm PT

    @ Yuck_too. But that $700 billion doesn't cost them, it's an investment. We've been over that before, money invested is not the same as money spent, or money lost. They're buying these mortgage backed securities at rock bottom prices and at the end of the day maybe 5% of those mortgages will have defaulted. The US government comes out ahead, just like they did during the bailout in the 1930's, just like they did during the Savings and Loans crisis. The US markets are currently so far below fair market value that another 700 point loss would provide a buying opportunity the likes of which we probably won't see again for a decade. These companies were making billions last year, billions this year and will continue to make billions next year despite whatever happens to their stock prices. For the investor who has the patience and clarity to recognize that a share in a sound company when it's on sale will be greatly rewarded in the years to come.
    This financial crisis is already over. The banks and lenders have changed their ways or perished already and more bodies will still float to the top but the damage is done. Right now we have to focus on repairing that damage and getting the credit flowing again and this can and will be accomplished by the US government taking ownership of the debt instruments currently clogging the system.

  • Yuck_Too

    Posted Oct 1, 2008 12:27 pm PT

    --Darkrid66--
    "You may think it's all make belive money but I know behind every instrument, every share certificate there is a company making money, with real assets, there is a family who owns a mortgage on a real home, there are real goods and equipment, warehouses filled with gold bullion, people with potential to earn wages their entire lives and build real things, huge deposits of natural resources, etc. This isn't just play money or pretend currency, these aren't pretend IOU's."
    ~~~
    Actually while what you say is true it's also incomplete and that is what makes my statement correct.

    For every $1 a bank holds they are allowed to lend out $10 under the assumption that 90% of their debts are good and far less then 10% of those loans will default.

    That however does mean they make up money that does not exist based of what they expect to gain in the future.

    But if more then 10% of those loans get defaulted on the bank does not have the assets to cover the loss much less to secure new lines of investment.

    And that is the banks responsibility, they knew the risks, they played the game and laughed for years as they scooped up the cash, and now when it's time to pay the piper they beg for a gimmie?

    And they will get it tonight, and nothing will change, business as usual, just ignore the man behind the curtain.

  • Yuck_Too

    Posted Oct 1, 2008 12:07 pm PT

    --darkride66--
    So tell me...if in a few hours lets say the bill once again fails to pass, market crashes back down another 700 points and the end result is what?

    The weak and over-extended fall. The big banks that are left have already gotten their acts together, in fact the ones left will be truly colossal in a few years when things recover because of all the assets they just got to steal for pennies on the dollar.

    But at least we will have that cull which will drop values of everything back down to where they belong.

    If the bill passes...it's like none of this ever happened for the next little while, until people begin to realize over the next 4-years how much $700 Billion really costs them.

    But by that point the guilty are gone and the ones that replace them claim it was not their idea.

    Personally they should add an amendment to the bill that says if this turns out to be the world's largest boondoggle that those who signed it into being be held criminally responsible.

    Ignorance is not an excuse.

  • darkride66

    Posted Oct 1, 2008 11:57 am PT

    @ Yuck_Too. How do you figure I don't understand business? Where am I wrong? You haven't addressed that. I've dismissed your "only spend whatcha got" mantra simply because it will not work with our current financial system, and let's be clear...that's what we're talking about here. We aren't talking about the people next door who max their credit cards. We're talking about a global financial system that is based on the free flow of credit from industry and government. You may like to critisize and point fingers, pass overly simplified judgement over the whole process but I live and work within this system. It's not going anywhere and for better or worse it's what we have to work with. My business sense comes from a world where I've been in front of the markets, 8 hours a day 5 days a week for the last decade. I don't like a lot of what I've seen and I don't pretend to understand it all but I think the entire system is far from broken and I certainly don't feel that the ideological notion of "only spend what you've got" is going to take root anytime soon. This idea runs contrary to the very basis of society. The second a farmer said to another "I don't have anything to give you right now, but if you help me build a home I'll kick over 10% of my grain harvest to you for a year," our system was born, and it will always be this way. You may think it's all make belive money but I know behind every instrument, every share certificate there is a company making money, with real assets, there is a family who owns a mortgage on a real home, there are real goods and equipment, warehouses filled with gold bullion, people with potential to earn wages their entire lives and build real things, huge deposits of natural resources, etc. This isn't just play money or pretend currency, these aren't pretend IOU's.

  • Musashi920

    Posted Oct 1, 2008 11:53 am PT

    The economy in general is in a bad state. But this show that the gaming economy is good and healthy.

  • Amir29

    Posted Oct 1, 2008 11:48 am PT

    I'm happy they didn't go for it. Delaying the inevitable doesn't fix anything. All it does is increase our debt to buy us time. We need to get through this anyways. Might as well let it be now and try to find a plan to get more jobs and some reforms to stabilize our economy again.

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