As promised, here's a marked-up graph of Electronic Arts (Nasdaq: ERTS) stock performance since March of last year, courtesy Jason Kraft and Chris Kwak of Susquehanna Financial Group.
From a high of
nearly $70 to today's share price of $50, Electronic Arts hasn't been knocked about quite as hard as competitor
Take-Two, but the company's investors have certainly been taken on a roller-coaster like ride through the year. The bad news is that the bad news may
not be over yet.
Financial performance is a lagging indicator of customer preference for a company's
products. If EA's hurting, it's because gamers (that's all of us!) are simply not buying their products to the extent
that we once were. Every time we write about EA a reader always writes in to criticize the company's products for being
derivative and unimaginative. It's therefore tempting to suggest that gamer fatigue is finally hitting EA in the
pocketbook. There's so much else going on here, though, that such a conclusion would be premature.
Will Superman save the day for EA?
