ATVI (Activision) going to rebound?

[vindikation]

Is ATVI (Activision) ready to break out after the brutal beatings the past 3 weeks?

http://stockcharts.com/def/servlet/SC.web?c=atvi

[Sniper]

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Is ATVI (Activision) ready to break out after the brutal beatings the past 3 weeks?

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First, you should use the WIDE chart size to see more info on stockcharts.

Technical Analysis...
Breakout of what?... its downtrending channel?

ATVI broke down thru key support at 14 last week.

The November price highs were hit with divergences on both MACD and RSI (higher highs on price, but lower highs on MACD and RSI), signaling the potential downturn, that then occured.

If there was a bounce, I would look at the 200day MA and the key support (now resistance) area at 14 as targets, before more downside continuation! Possible downside targets of 12 and then 10.

Recent Analyst comments...
11/30 - NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Banc of America analyst Gary Cooper believe November video game industry sales data, due out after Friday's close, will be "surprisingly bad." Cooper expects sales to be down at least 30% from year-earlier levels, following declines of more than 24% in both September and October. He thinks Activision's "True Crime" and PlayStation Portable (PSP) hardware sales will be a major disappointments. Other disappointments might include the supply of Xbox 360 hardware, Electronic Arts' "Need for Speed: Most Wanted," Activision's "Tony Hawk: America Wasteland" and "Call of Duty: Big Red One" and Take Two Interactive's sports games. Meanwhile, Cooper recommended investors buy THQ Inc. , on the belief the games maker's main titles have met expectations, and games retailer GameStop on weakness.

What does S&P have to say...
S&P has a fair value calc of 11.50 on the stock, but still has the 12 month target at $20... likely see a downgrade if the conf call isn't good (which may now be the expectation). The stock was already been downgraded by 3 analysts in November.

Insider transactions
In the last 6 months, there have been no insider purchases, and there have been 13 insider sales for a total of 3 million shares.

Activision is also presenting at a conference this week (look for this to affect trading)...
Activision, Inc. (Nasdaq: ATVI) today announced that Robert Kotick, Chairman and CEO, will be presenting at the UBS 33rd Annual Media Week Conference on Tuesday, December 6th at 9:00 a.m. (EST) at The Grand Hyatt in New York.

Mr. Kotick's remarks will be broadcast over the Internet. To access the webcast, please log on to www.activision.com (http://www.activision.com) or: http://event.streamx.us/event/20051205 Please note that the presentation time is subject to change. Please contact the financial institution hosting the conference for additional details.

During the course of the presentation, Activision may make forward-looking statements regarding future events or the future financial performance of the company. We wish to caution you that these statements are only predictions and actual events or results may differ materially. We refer you to the company's last Form 10-K and Form 10-Q for a discussion of important risk factors that could cause the actual results to differ materially from those discussed during the course of the presentation.

Headquartered in Santa Monica, California, Activision, Inc. is a leading worldwide developer, publisher and distributor of interactive entertainment and leisure products. Founded in 1979, Activision posted net revenues of $1.4 billion for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2005.

[vindikation]

Cool thanks for the info Sniper

[Sniper]

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Cool thanks for the info Sniper

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What did you learn?

[vindikation]

It gives me a little better understanding of how to use and interpret the MACD ans RSI. I'm reading a TA book now, and I have a "fundamental" understanding of their definitions, but actually seeing them applied in a real stock is helpful, thanks.

[vindikation]

What do you think of the TA as of today?

http://stockcharts.com/def/servlet/SC.web?c=atvi

[Sniper]

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What do you think of the TA as of today?

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My original comment still holds... only a solid move back above 14, would change my technical view...

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If there was a bounce, I would look at the 200day MA and the key support (now resistance) area at 14 as targets, before more downside continuation! Possible downside targets of 12 and then 10.

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[vindikation]

Today it was announced that ATVI is being added to the NASDAQ 100 Index on December 19.

http://www.nasdaq.com/newsroom/news/pr2005/ne_section05_121.stm

I assume this is a good thing and "should" drive the price up?

[Sniper]

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I assume this is a good thing and "should" drive the price up?

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Being added to an index is generally a good thing!
(i'm going to highlight the full list in a seperate thread)

[vindikation]

THANK GOD THIS THING HAS FINALLY GONE UP!

http://finance.yahoo.com/q?s=ATVI&d=t

Takes me in the black finally for the year. Stop loss is set, I won't be having a red year.

[vindikation]

OK game over, down over 12% in after hours trading. F*CK!

No more individual stock trading for me. I'm moving over to long term investments in ETF's. I'll leave the trading stuff to you pros.

Good luck

[Sniper]

SANTA MONICA, Calif., Dec. 14 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Activision, Inc. (Nasdaq: ATVI) today announced that it expects net revenues and earnings for the third and fourth quarter and full fiscal year 2006 to be lower than the outlook previously provided by the company on November 2, 2005.

Although there are still a number of critical selling days left in the quarter, which ends December 31, 2005, the company anticipates that earnings will be significantly lower than the outlook previously provided. The company has noted the following factors in its assessment of market conditions and the reasons for the changes in performance expectations:

* While a number of the company's products are outperforming the competition in the marketplace, overall the company's portfolio of products are not selling as well as had been anticipated. The company expects lower than anticipated reorders of its most profitable titles. During the quarter, the company significantly increased spending on consumer and trade activity driven in part by competitive pricing actions. As a result, the company expects that its operating results will be disproportionately affected by title and market underperformance.

* Videogame hardware and software market conditions in the U.S. and Europe are weaker than expected. For the October/November period, U.S. software sales were down 20%, as measured by NPD FunWorld, and sales in the month of December are tracking below company expectations. The company has also seen similar trends in the European software market. The weakness in the U.S. and European markets is believed to be driven by an accelerated shift in consumer demand away from current generation hardware and software due to the introduction of new hardware as well as declines in consumer spending.

The company's fourth quarter will also be negatively impacted by the factors listed above and lower than expected catalogue sales.

"Even though we have not yet completed the quarter and there is still uncertainty as the holiday season unfolds, we wanted to provide an update with regard to market conditions and the performance of our portfolio of products as a whole. For the quarter, we still expect to generate significant revenues; however, we are disappointed that our earnings performance will come in substantially below our previous outlook," stated Michael Griffith, President and CEO of Activision Publishing, Inc.

"The midterm market conditions will continue to pose challenges, but we believe we are well positioned to benefit from the long-term positive fundamentals of the videogame business, as we have over the last thirteen years. We recently renewed several high-profile intellectual property licenses for the long term including Spider-Man(TM), X-men(TM) and Shrek. We also have the #1 rated and best selling title on the Xbox 360(TM), Call of Duty 2. We believe the combination of high quality intellectual properties and strong development talent should have a positive impact on our future performance."

The company currently expects to report its final results for the third quarter in late January.

[Sniper]

SAN FRANCISCO (Dow Jones) - Video game publisher Activision Inc. on Wednesday afternoon slashed its profits and sales forecast for the current third quarter as well as the remainder of its fiscal year.

Shares of Activision (ATVI) slid 14% in after-hours trading after a halt on the stock was lifted following the announcement. The shares closed the regular session up 72 cents at $14.30.

The Santa Monica-based company said the shortfall is partially attributable to soft-than-expected sales of its game titles in October and November. Further, the company said its operating results for the quarter would be disproportionately affected by heavy marketing spending to promote its holiday launch slate.

Although Activision did not provide specific projections, the company said its earnings for the third quarter ended December 31 would be "significantly lower" than previously forecast.

"For the quarter, we still expect to generate significant revenues; however, we are disappointed that our earnings performance will come in substantially below our previous outlook," Michael Griffith, CEO of the company's publishing unit, said in a statement.

The company also said its fourth quarter earnings would be below expectations because of lower-than-expected catalogue sales.

Last month, Activision said its third quarter earnings would be 52 cents a share on revenue of $790 million. In the fourth fiscal quarter, Activision had expected 5 cents a share on sales of $226 million. For the full fiscal year, Activision has said earnings would be 52 cents a share with revenue coming in at $1.48 billion.

The company was hoping strong earnings in the current quarter would provide the bulk of its profits as the window contained a full slate of eight titles for retail, including "Tony Hawk's American Wasteland," and the action game "Call of Duty 2" for the new Xbox 360 console.

During the quarter, Activision had expected a warmer consumer reception to two internally-developed titles: "True Crime: New York City" and "GUN."

[Sniper]

Activision Sees Stagnation

By Troy Wolverton
TheStreet.com Staff Reporter
12/14/2005 5:49 PM EST

Activision (ATVI:Nasdaq) poured some coal in investors' stockings Wednesday afternoon, warning that earnings and revenue for the next two quarters will be "significantly lower" than previously forecast guidance.

The video game-software maker blamed the disappointing outlook for the holiday and first calendar quarters on worse-than-expected sales and reorders of the company's titles, price cuts and weak sales overall in U.S. and European markets.

In a statement, Michael Griffith, CEO of Activision's publishing division, acknowledged that the holiday period wasn't yet over and that there was still uncertainty about how the season would turn out.

However, the company had seen enough to feel like it needed to update its outlook, he said.

"We are disappointed that our earnings performance will come in substantially below our previous outlook," Griffith said.

For their part, investors seemed disenchanted. In recent after-hours trading, shares of Activision were off $2.04, or 14%, to $12.26. The company's stock closed regular trading on Wednesday -- prior to the announcement -- up 72 cents, or 5.3%, to $14.30.

The company did not provide new estimates for the coming periods. In November, Activision officials predicted that the company would earn 52 cents per share on $790 million in sales in the current, third fiscal quarter and 5 cents a share on $226 million in sales in the coming fourth quarter.

Analysts had forecast profits of 53 cents a share on $799.3 million in sales in the current period and 6 cents a share on sales of $230.1 million next quarter.

Activision's warning is somewhat unexpected. According to market data from NPD released Tuesday, the company saw strong sales in November.

The company's Call of Duty 2 title was the most popular game sold for Microsoft's (MSFT:Nasdaq) new Xbox 360, and retail sales of Activision's games in the U.S. grew 54% year over year to $97 million.

In contrast, game software sales as a whole fell 18% last month.

The company did not mention which specific titles were selling poorly or which were seeing lower-than-expected reorders. But Activision did say that it was having trouble with reorders on its "most profitable" titles.

Typically, the most profitable titles in a game-publisher's portfolio are those that are developed internally and do not involve outside licenses of content. For Activision, that would likely imply that the reorder problem was affecting games such as Gun and True Crime: New York City, both of which received poor or mediocre reviews.

According to NPD, retailers sold 224,593 copies of Gun last month and just 77,251 copies of True Crime: New York City.

Games in general aren't considered a hit unless they sell at least 1 million copies. Given that the bulk of game sales typically occur in the first several weeks after they are released and that both Gun and the latest True Crime were released last month, the company could have a difficult time turning either of the titles into hits.

Activision's warning is only the latest downcast news from the video game-software sector. Although it didn't issue a formal earnings warning, industry leader Electronic Arts (ERTS:Nasdaq) last week cautioned analysts that it too was seeing weak sales.

Late last month, GameStop (GME:Nasdaq), the leading video-game retailer, lowered its own sales guidance for the fourth quarter.

Meanwhile, November represented at least the third month in a row of disappointing sales results from NPD.

As with other consumer-oriented businesses, video game-software makers garner the bulk of their sales and earnings in the holiday quarter. The industry has been roiled in recent months by a technology transition as hardware makers such as Microsoft rolled out new consoles.

Such transitions typically lead to soft game sales in the short term amid heightened development costs.

Despite the short-term troubles, most analysts remain bullish on the industry's long-term prospects.

[Evan]

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Insider transactions
In the last 6 months, there have been no insider purchases, and there have been 13 insider sales for a total of 3 million shares.

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I just want to point out that this can be an extremely misleading statistic. Insiders don't always sell becase they don't like the company. Lots of these guys have nearly their entire net worth tied up in the stock. Maybe he wants to buy a house or a boat or pay for his kids wedding or college. Who knows? It's not always a bad thing though.

Edit to say that due to Eliot Spitzer it's probably a bad thing much less often now than it used to be since insiders are likely going to be terrified to sell if it could be seen as dishonest.

[Sniper]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Insider transactions
In the last 6 months, there have been no insider purchases, and there have been 13 insider sales for a total of 3 million shares.

[/ QUOTE ]

I just want to point out that this can be an extremely misleading statistic. Insiders don't always sell becase they don't like the company. Lots of these guys have nearly their entire net worth tied up in the stock. Maybe he wants to buy a house or a boat or pay for his kids wedding or college. Who knows? It's not always a bad thing though.

Edit to say that due to Eliot Spitzer it's probably a bad thing much less often now than it used to be since insiders are likely going to be terrified to sell if it could be seen as dishonest.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm sure that you noted, in this case, I did not give an opinion on the impact of the insider transactions... merely stated the facts! It is useful information to have when looking at a company!

[Evan]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Insider transactions
In the last 6 months, there have been no insider purchases, and there have been 13 insider sales for a total of 3 million shares.

[/ QUOTE ]

I just want to point out that this can be an extremely misleading statistic. Insiders don't always sell becase they don't like the company. Lots of these guys have nearly their entire net worth tied up in the stock. Maybe he wants to buy a house or a boat or pay for his kids wedding or college. Who knows? It's not always a bad thing though.

Edit to say that due to Eliot Spitzer it's probably a bad thing much less often now than it used to be since insiders are likely going to be terrified to sell if it could be seen as dishonest.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm sure that you noted, in this case, I did not give an opinion on the impact of the insider transactions... merely stated the facts! It is useful information to have when looking at a company!

[/ QUOTE ]
I know you didn't say it was bad, but I think that's a logical conclusion that most people would draw if they didn't know any better. I'm not sure how useful it is though. Insider buying is a more reliable indicator than insider selling imo. I suppose it's worth looking at, but it requires a lot more background info before it's meaningful.