Activision Beats Street, Announces Possible Guitar Hero Shortage

Yesterday I said that I expected that Activision would probably miss expectations for their most recent quarter, and would have to announce they would be unlikely to meet previous guidance for the year. Not only was I wrong about both of those things, they also announced a $1 billion dollar stock buy-back, and said that there would be a possible short-fall of Guitar Hero World Tour games available this holiday season. Again, basically about at wrong as I could have possibly been. My bad. I hope the shirtless picture of Heidi Klum playing a toy guitar at least partly makes up for my mistake.

So now we know that game sales are through the roof. Activision beat expectations, EA's sales were up 40% and the CEO of TTWO recently announced that the recession was not hurting their sales... And yet, Game Stop (GME) stock price keeps trending down. It was as high as $33 bucks a share within the past month, but it touch into the $23s today. One of the companies best poised to make out in this environment, is continuing to get killed.... Dumb, dumb, dumb. Mark my words, GME will blow away the street on November 20th. Yeah, I've been wrong before. I know, I know... But...

American Apparel today announced they had same store sales up 22% in October. They were the number 1 retailer in terms of comp sales to announce. They beat EVERYONE! Yes, the stock isn't peaking, but it sure was up today. People are skeptical an weary of the current environment, but their performance can't be denied. I'm looking forward to some powerful earnings on the 10th.

And, for the record, I bought more ATVI yesterday afternoon. I know I expected bad things and expected the stock to hurt, but, it just got too cheap as investors were scared off late in the day. And, a little more research showed me that expectations were very low and easily beatable. Video games are going to thrive during this holiday season, and they are all severely beaten down. Now is a beautiful time to invest in the entire sector (except Best Buy, which is going out of business :-P )