I think Skylanders and COD will keep Activision in the black for a long time to come.

My personnal feeling is that at this point Nintendo will perform roughly like the market. I don't expect it to outperform like crazy like when the Wii released.

Right now the stock is up a little because the market has been up.

And to be honest if I want to get the same return than the market at large, ETFs are probably safer..

Can a company retain all earnings rather than pay dividend?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dividend

I'm asking because I'm trying to find the relationship between earnings and fluctuations (possible surges) in the market.

If earnings all retained, then that means the intrinsic value of the company increases, hence its market value should in theory increase. Can a stock be undervalued? (Meaning it holds a value lower than what the company is actually worth?)

From the Nikkei article Seth provided,

On Greece:

"The news of a Greek delay may prompt profit-taking in overheated markets, but fundamentally speaking the talks are advancing towards a bailout ... Global markets are flooded with liquidity as a result of central banks' easing policies, so even if shares fall today, there will be plenty of buyers on dips," said Hiroichi Nishi, equity general manager at SMBC Nikko Securities. Earlier, Greece's political leaders agreed to the two final demands set by its international lenders to secure a bailout package."

On Japanese stock:

"Goldman Sachs wrote in their portfolio strategy note on Wednesday that Japanese equities were finally catching up to the global rally and said it had now expanded its cyclical recommendation to banks, insurance and real estate. Goldman lifted its six-month Topix target by 24 percent to 900 from 725, representing upside of 12 percent from current levels. Nomura was also bullish, writing in note that continued buying of high-beta stocks will support automakers, machinery, financials and trading sectors."

There's nothing that say a company has to pay dividends...

Ideally in a capitalistic word, yes it should, but nothing forces them...

It's just that it's stupid for a company to hold too much money and let it sleep and do nothing and in practice that money is the shareholders money but with today stock market and companies worth hundreds of billions a lot of company don't have shareholders owning a huge share of the company so the ownership is so diluted that the board sometimes ignores the basic shareholders requests ( hello Apple !!)

Retaining capital doesn't actually intrinsicly increase the company value because the fact that a company pays dividends is seen as a value too and a part of the stock price account for that so it's not that easy...

As for your last question it has happened after big crashes that a company stock price is lower than its book value.. Typically that's when the vultures start circling around and want to buy out companies and dismantle them ( think Richard Gere in Pretty Woman).

^Awesome.

@dividends. So paying dividends increases the market value. That's really interesting. Though keeping earnings might increase the book value of the company, issuing dividends increases the market value. I guess there's an interesting balance there.

@Investors briefings. So generally, if a company posts profits over a period, it normally increases both the book value and the market value, bar a few occasions.

Thread Update

Okay! I created a private game at investopedia.

The link is -> goo.gl/hJqCm
and the password is 58958.

The only rule for now is, let's make sure to only invest in video game stock, as listed in page 1. If you have more stocks I should add to page 1, let me know ;)

I'll be using the last reserved spot on page 1 for this. Please join! :D

Great idea! However, I propose to include "entertainment" stocks in general such as lionsgate, netflix ec.

Msft is the only one that I can really be long on, but even then, the company is only growing 8 percent a year, so it can't be a great buy. Sony is going to be in the doghouse for a while, and nintendomas well bc they've really screwed themselves with the design of their next console. The price/value metric of the wiiU isnt going to be as good, and the portability aspect that it is pushing isn't impressive. I don't really follow developers or publishers but perhaps they would make a better buy at the moment. goog and appl seem like great buys right now. Apple is about to come out with their TV product and while I don't think that it will be a home run, do to the crowded market for TVs and the low profit margins those companies have, it wont be awesome. goog keeps growing much more rapidly and should be gaining market share in tablet sales, increasing google+ membership, and further pump more users into its base search product. I predict 17-24 percent revenue growth on a yearly basis for goog, and their shares could be,at $700 by the end of the year

We started a stock game in my Investment class on Monday. We had to have the stock picked on Monday, and the closing price was Monday nights close.

Since it is only a 2 month game, I didn't look into a stock as I would have if it had been longer (nor did I look at it as if it was real money, since it isn't). Instead, I looked for a stock that I considered to be "on sale" and that had potential for good gains in the next 2 months. One thing to realize is I was willing to take more risk because it is not real money. There is no grade for doing bad for the project, you simply don't stand as good of a chance to get grade bonuses if your stock does bad.

I picked Nintendo. Their stock has already adjusted quite significantly in regards to them saying they will post a loss for the fiscal year as well as the strong yen. I am sort of banking on the idea that they have a good couple months, and perhaps the Yen becomes less of an issue for the finances.

My starting price was 17.32 and it is currently at 18.36...a healthy 6% gain in 4 days, with the S&P index up only .7%

If our class beats the S&P index, everybody gets a 2/3 grade increase (B to A-, B+ to A, etc).

As a college kid, I obviously don't have tons of money, but I have also been thinking about potentially investing $1,000-$3,000 in the stock market. Obviously it would take quite a bit of research. One issue is I don't have tons of money, so I wouldn't necessarily be able to keep it in the market for prolonged periods (I would prefer not to have any student loans if possible).

One possible scenario I have thought of is to get in a more stable stock that pays good dividends. Obviously the whole thing would be more for the fun aspect than anything, because even a 15% gain would only represent $450 if I invested 3 grand.