Video game publisher electronic Arts( EA) has seen its shares rise on hopes for a strong holiday sales season. EA stock reached a buy point on Thursday.
On the stock exchange today, EA stock increased 1.1% to 143.60. In intraday trading, it climbed as high as 143.86.
In afternoon trading, EA stock passed a buy point of 143.54 from a cup-with-handle base. However, trading volume ahead of the New Year’s holiday weekend was about half the stock’s average.
Recently, Morgan Stanley analyst Brian Nowak raised his cost target on EA stock to 150 from 140. But he kept his equal-weight, or neutral, ranking on Electronic Arts.
Like other video game business, EA has taken advantage of the stay-at-home home entertainment trend stimulated by the Covid-19 pandemic.
“Our work reveals 2020 most likely pulled forward about 4 years of video game user growth as gamer bases, time spent, payer bases, and in-game revenue rose,” Nowak said in a note to clients. “Looking ahead, we think it will be significantly essential for publishers to keep their brand-new and existing in-game content fresh (updates, new adventures, etc.) to keep these gamers and their wallets as the genuine world reopens.”
EA Stock Ranks Seventh In Market Group
Redwood City, Calif.-based Electronic Arts are best known for its sports game franchises, such as Madden NFL and FIFA. Its other game brand names include The Sims, Battlefield, Star Wars, Apex Legends, and Requirement for Speed. EA completes mostly with Activision Blizzard( ATVI), Take-Two Interactive Software( TTWO), and Ubisoft.
On Dec. 14, EA outbid Take-Two to purchase U.K.-based game studio Codemasters for $1.2 billion. Codemasters makes racing video games with such franchises as Dirt, Grid, and Formula One.
EA stock ranks No. 7 out of 15 stocks in IBD’s Computer system Software-Gaming industry group, according to the IBD Stock Examination tool. It has a good IBD Composite Score of 75. IBD’s Composite Rating combines 5 different proprietary scores into one easy-to-use rating. The very best growth stocks have a Composite Ranking of 90 or much better.