Personal Finance, Money and Investing

Stock Focus: Electronic Arts (ERTS)

Posted on December 31, 2007 in the Investing, Stocks category

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If you tried to get a Wii this holiday season then you understand that if there’s one tech niche that should be immune to a slowdown, it’s videogames. Videogame sales rose 39% in October, according to the NPD Group, after a 64% rise in September.

Electronic Arts stock has stagnated since 2004, with earnings falling and critics charging that EA was too reliant on aging franchises like Madden N FL. But things started to look up in early 2007 when ex-president John Riccitiello returned as CEO. Riccitiello reorganized EA into four divisions and spent $860 million to acquire BioWare and Pandemic, two smaller game studios that improved EA’s lineup.

EA has also worked hard at playing catch-up in the red-hot Wii market. It’s now the No. 2 developer of Wii games, behind only Nintendo. The result: Analysts expect earnings to rise 76% next year.

P/E Ratio: 28

Yield: 0%


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