Have you been laid off because of coronavirus? Don’t panic, this guide lays out the next steps, including applying for benefits and health care.
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In one of the most volatile episodes in stock market history, investors early last year took the shares of a company called GameStop (GME) on a wild ride that few would have expected for a business that’s mostly a brick-and-mortar antique, the gaming version of a chain of video stores. Its shares went on an adventure that echoed the characteristics of the video games on its shelves: fantasy, violence and a romantic quest for justice and vengeance.
In real life, however, GameStop has had a lousy year, losing money once again. But the rest of the gaming sector has taken up the mantle. It’s booming, becoming the backbone of the metaverse, a three-dimensional online environment that is likely the “next big thing” in consumer technology.
In 2020, partly because the pandemic kept Americans indoors, gaming revenues exceeded those of movies and sports events combined. Global gaming sales in 2021 are estimated at $178 billion and projected to rise to $269 billion by 2025. According to the consulting firm Accenture, one out of every three people in the world is a gamer.Â
No wonder so many big tech players are investing in the business. In 2000, Microsoft (MSFT, $306) launched the game-playing console Xbox, and in 2014 the company bought Minecraft, a survival-themed game, for $2.5 billion; Minecraft now has 131 million active monthly users. In January, Microsoft announced that, pending regulatory approval, it will spend $69 billion to purchase ActivisionBlizzard (ATVI), which has 400 million gamers a month playing such popular titles as Call of Duty and World of Warcraft.
Trying to stay abreast, Sony Group, maker of the wildly popular PlayStation console, announced Jan. 31 that it was buying Bungie, the private developer of the Halo and Destiny franchises, for $3.6 billion. (Stocks I like are in bold; share data are as of Feb. 4.)Â
Amazon (AMZN, $3,153) entered the market in 2014 with the purchase of Twitch Interactive for $970 million. Twitch lets gamers livestream themselves to viewers, who can watch and comment. Twitch has about 8 million active users. It dominates the market, but competition is growing from such big players as Microsoft, with its entry Mixer; Alphabet (GOOGL, $2,866), with YouTube Live; and Meta Platforms (FB, $237), the former Facebook.Â
Facebook, walloped by a disappointing revenue projection for the first quarter of 2022, has thrown in its lot with the metaverse. Itâs an idea with roots in Second Life, a computer game Facebook created in 2003. When I was a State Department official, my avatar gave an interactive speech in 2008 with the avatars of pro-democracy Egyptian students. In the metaverse, you can go to concerts, hold business meetings where you are immersed in, say, a construction site or restaurant, or drop down onto a virtual football field and run a few plays. The key for investors is that the metaverse depends on technology developed for video games.
The metaverse, with its promise of interconnected worlds, may be the next frontier for gaming, but for investors, gaming poses challenges. You could buy the tech giants because gaming is a growing part of their businesses, but recognize that it is dwarfed by, say, online retailing, cloud computing and advertising. And many of the best developers of video games are private firms, so you can’t invest in them. So, what are the best pure plays to take advantage of a craze that could still be in its infancy?Â
Look first to the companies that make the games. Many games today are so sophisticated that they can cost as much to make as the most dazzling Hollywood films. Grand Theft Auto 5 required 250 programmers and other employees of Rockstar working for five years at a total expense of $265 million. That’s more than the films “Titanic” or “The Dark Knight Rises.” The investment paid off. GTA5 has grossed more than any movie ever made.Â
Take-Two Interactive Software (TTWO, $175) owns the Rockstar label and has been gobbling up smaller developer firms, including Zynga (maker of FarmVille, a huge hit that was introduced as an app in 2009). Take-Two, with a market value of $18 billion, is solidly profitable, but shares have dropped about 20% in the past two years. With a market cap of $37 billion, well-managed, independent developer Electronic Arts (EA, $138), makes such games as Battlefield, The Sims and Madden NFL. It trades at a reasonable price-earnings ratio of 18.Â
Nvidia (NVDA, $243) makes semiconductors for a variety of sectors, but, as the world’s largest designer of graphic processing units, its chips are popular in video games, including those that create virtual environments for immersion in the metaverse. In its latest quarterly report, Nvidia reported that gaming revenues rose 42% and are approaching half of the company’s total sales. Still, shares fell by nearly one-third in the first three weeks of 2022, creating a buying opportunity.Â
Other metaverse stocks were also caught in the undertow of fears of higher interest rates and falling valuations. With a market cap of $30 billion, Unity Software (U, $109), which operates a development platform for the software that powers complex games, fell in price by about half from November to January, despite a surge in revenues. Over the same period, Matterport (MTTR, $8), which captures the feel of interior space with its 3D cameras, dropped by two-thirds, even though analysts see revenues rising in 2022 from $109 million to $160 million. The company is still unprofitable, and its $2.6 billion valuation is lofty, but if you can tolerate risk, Matterport could be a good long-term investment.Â
A few exchange-traded funds focus on gaming stocks. Global X Video Games and Esports (HERO, $27), with an expense ratio of 0.50%, was launched in 2019. Among the top holdings are NetEase (NTES, $101), a large Chinese developer, and Ubisoft (UBSFY, $12), a mid-cap French maker of such games as Rainbow Six Extraction and Just Dance.Â
With expenses of 0.55%, Van Eck Video Gaming and eSports (ESPO, $63) dates from 2018, with a small portfolio similar to that of the Global X ETF. Both funds lean toward high-profile stocks such as Nvidia and Electronic Arts, but one notable highlight of the Van Eck ETF is NEXON (NEXOY, $20), a Japanese firm with an emphasis on the fast-growing Asian market. Unlike many other gaming companies, Nexon’s shares have been rising since last fall. Van Eck’s top asset is Tencent Holdings (TCEHY, $62), the giant Chinese social media company that is, by some calculations, the largest gaming business in the world through its online offerings. Tencent has suffered from Chinese government intervention, so there’s political risk to consider.Â
Game stocks carry the likelihood of substantial returns â perhaps, if regulators allow, through acquisitions by giants such as Alphabet, Microsoft and Sony. And their prospects, unlike the plotlines of many of their products, are built on a real-life foundation.Â
These stocks and funds stand to gain from the virtual-reality world known as the metaverse.
James K. Glassman chairs Glassman Advisory, a public-affairs consulting firm. He does not write about his clients. His most recent book is Safety Net: The Strategy for De-Risking Your Investments in a Time of Turbulence. Of the stocks mentioned here, he owns Amazon, Microsoft and Nvidia. Reach him at [email protected].
The Arms Index or Trading Index (TRIN) is a breadth indicator used to indicate when the stock market is overbought and oversold. In simpler terms, it measures how strong or weak the market is on any given day. Technical analyst Richard W. Arms developed the Arms Index formula in 1967 as a tool for gauging […]
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Despite the Fair Housing Act of 1968 and other federal laws, a large race gap in homeownership continues to exist across the United States. The Black homeownership rate in the fourth quarter of 2021 stood at 43%, compared with 74% for non-Hispanic whites, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. A large race gap in homeownership […]
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What Are Bollinger Bands? Bollinger Bands® are popular tools used in technical analysis of securities. They are a set of three bands that measure the relative high or low of a securityâs price in relation to previous trades. These defined trend lines are the simple moving average (SMA) of the price of the security plus […]
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Stocks were dragged lower for a second straight day after several U.S. officials issued warnings that Russia could attack Ukraine in the next several days.
Also, presentations by several members of the Federal Open Market Committee left investors wanting for more detail about the central bank’s impending tightening plans.
Among them was New York Fed President John Williams, who, while speaking at a New Jersey City University event, said “it will be appropriate to raise the target rate” in March but didn’t specify by how much.
Also in focus today was data from the National Association of Realtors that showed existing-home sales climbed 6.7% month-over-month in January to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 6.5 million units.
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This was the biggest sequential rise since July 2020, says Jennifer Lee, senior economist at BMO. And the gains were broad-based across both categories of homes and regions in the U.S. According to Lee, this is likely indicative of “the rush to get in before borrowing costs move higher. The Fed’s communication has been crystal clear on that front ⦠warning that higher rates are just around the corner.”
At the close, the Nasdaq Composite was down 1.2%% at 13,548, the S&P 500 Index was off 0.7% at 4,348 and the Dow Jones Industrial Average ended with a 0.7% loss at 34,079 â though all three indexes finished off their session lows.
As a reminder, the U.S. stock market will be closed Monday in observance of Presidents’ Day.
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Other news in the stock market today:
While the stock market may be worried about a potential Russian invasion of Ukraine, S&P 500 companies don’t seem to be.
“During each corporate earnings season, it is not unusual for companies to comment on subjects that had an impact on their earnings and revenues in a given quarter, or may have an impact on earnings and revenues in future quarters,” says John Butters, senior earnings analyst at FactSet.
But in a search of all S&P 500 firms that had earnings conference calls between Dec. 15 and Feb. 17, “Ukraine” was cited in just 4% of those calls. “By contrast, 72% of S&P 500 companies have cited ‘inflation’ on earnings calls over this same period,” Butters adds.
While companies often have options in combating higher inflation, so too do investors. One potential way to guard a portfolio against inflation risk is with defensive, dividend-paying plays such as healthcare stocks or real estate investment trusts (REITs).
Another is to consider consumer staples stocks, which tend to hold up during periods of higher prices. Read on as we look at some of the best consumer staples stocks for 2022, many of which offer investors some level of defense against rising prices.
There are various in-demand jobs in 2022 as companies begin to fill empty roles. In 2021, several million Americans left their jobs voluntarily, also known as the "Great Resignation". These workers were burnt out, looking for better pay, or deciding to shift to a brand-new career. In fact, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the quitting rate reached 2.9%, the highest since 2000. As a result, businesses and organizations are looking to hire hard-working individuals with impressive professional experiences and education. As a job seeker, you can find an available position in most industries, but especially in teaching, technology and health care. Here are the top in-demand jobs in 2022.
A highly in-demand job opportunity in 2022 is as a customer marketing manager. These positions are being filled through various industries, such as computer software, information technology and internet software. Customer marketing managers work between the marketing and sales departments to drive customer interactions. In fact, they work with both teams to develop and carry out different marketing activities that drive customer engagement — for example, putting on an awards program or a special event for dedicated consumers. Depending on where you find an available position, you could earn anywhere from around $90,000 to $155,000 annually.
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Another job opportunity in demand this year is a full stack software developer. Full stack developers are needed for every industry, including e-Commerce, health care, machine manufacturing and real estate. If you want to work in this field, you’ll need to know how to work with the latest development tools, such as a Cargo and Docker registry by JFrog. Using a Cargo registry, you can enable full control of your deployment and dependency resolution process. This way, you can benefit from a universal, enterprise-ready, and cloud-native solution. The salary range for this position varies greatly, but the median salary can be expected to be around $75,000.
Information security analysts are also an in-demand position for hiring companies. They are in high demand through various industries since businesses are increasingly focused on data privacy and company security. Responsibilities include designing and integrating efficient IT security systems and services to protect organizations. Additionally, information security analysts likely have to monitor complex computer networks to find any flaws, vulnerabilities or potential risks. As a result, those who work in this position should understand vulnerability solutions such as penetration testing, patch management and IDPS concepts. Information security analysts earn anywhere from about $78,000 to $133,000 a year.
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Of course, with companies hoping to expand their visability and revenue, online marketing research analysts are in high demand. These analysts are integrated within entrepreneur operations, start-ups and industries looking to create the next big thing. Responsibilities include market condition research and determining a product's chances of success. In fact, market research analysts need to know how to display data as charts and graphs to portray the market information that was found. For example, collecting product data such as who would buy a specific product and for how much would be a common topic for a presentation in this position. Find, apply and be hired as an analyst to earn a median salary of about $65,0000 a year.
Finally, product managers are highly sought after, especially as the economy recuperates from COVID-19. According to ADP, following the first wave of the pandemic, jobs such as admin support and company management positions have increased. In fact, the demand for these positions will continue to grow. Responsibilities as a product manager include developing certain business products —for example, creating and programming business' websites and applications. More so, this role manages a development team. Product managers collaborate with the development team to test software functionalities and follow through on the launch process. If hired as a product manager, you can earn a median salary of about $88,000 a year.
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There are hundreds of in demand jobs for 2022 as hiring trends shift upwards. Customer marketing managers are highly sought after in computer software, information technology, and digital industries for an annual average of about $122,000. Full stack software developers are required throughout all industries to create reliable and useable programs for an average of $75,000 a year. More so, information security analysts, who earn an average of $105,000 annually, are in high demand throughout various industries since they provide data protection and business privacy. Additionally, market research analysts are being vetted to assist in successful product market releases for around $65,000 annually. Finally, product managers are highly sought after to maintain website or app development processes and teams for around $88,000 a year.