The video game publisher Take-Two Interactive Software (TTWO) recently saw their stock hit an all-time record high on Thursday after they posted their first quarter results, which showed that the company had done much better than they were expected to do.
The company is based in New York and on Wednesday, the quarter results showed that the company earned 41 cents a share excluding items that were on sales of $348.3 million in the quarter ended June 30. Analysts and investors expected the company to 10 cents and $269.4 million. If one were to look at TTWO’s stock under accounting principles, the company earned 56 cents a share, a big recovery from their year-earlier loss of 46 cents a share on $418.2 million, up 34% year over year.
Like any other video game company, TTWO owes the increase in their stock to popular titles that they have helped publish such as Grand Theft Auto and NBA 2K17. Grand Theft Auto especially has been a large selling factor in the company’s stock increasing, Oppenheimer analyst Andrew Uerkwitz had this to say in regards to GTA’s influence on the company’s stock, “The power of ‘Grand Theft Auto’ and recurring revenue is undeniable, as we now model year-over-year earnings-per-share growth in a year with zero non-annual refresh title launches.”
TTWO was up 11%, nearing 88.20, in the midday trading on the stock market today, hitting a record high of 88.83. The company received at least eight price-target increases from approximately eight Wall Street analysts on Thursday. With the exception of Baird, all have buy ratings or the equivalent on the stock. TTWO expects to earn 60 cents a share excluding items on sales of $490 million, based on the midpoint of its guidance. Wall Street was expecting the company to earn 64 cents and $442 million. TTWO has increased their financial outlook for the current year, its fiscal, 2018, for net sales and net cash from operators. The company expects to set a new record by 2019 with the release of popular upcoming games such as Read Dead Redemption from Rockstar Games (the creators of the GTA series) and the upcoming release of a new title from one of 2K’s biggest franchises, which could possibly be NBA 2K18 or W2K18. Analysts expect the games to either be from the Borderlands or Bioshock franchises of 2K. TTWO is set to break their new record and increase their stock with the release of these upcoming video game titles.
