- Take-Two (NASDAQ:TTWO) shares fell 7.7% Tuesday, to close at $159.86, after the videogame publisher delivered fiscal first-quarter earnings with better-than-expected bookings, but disappointed investors by reiterating its full-year guidance amid some changes in its title release schedule.
- The company's estimate for second-quarter bookings at the midpoint of a range of $815 million to $865 million fell below consensus forecasts of $852.5 million. It also stuck with its previous full-year forecast for bookings of $3.2 billion to $3.3 billion.
- On Take-Two's (TTWO) earnings call, it didn't name the games in question but said the release of "two of our immersive core titles" was shifting to later in fiscal 2022 than earlier expected. That's due to ensuring top quality, Chief Executive Strauss Zelnick says.
- One of the games could be WWE 2K22 - about which Jefferies notes there's no official release date. Jefferies said that missing the holidays might have a significant impact on the title's sales.
- That adds some uncertainty, and may have led to the lack of a raised guidance, Jefferies said. However, Jefferies, which has a $231 a share price target on Take-Two's (TTWO) stock, is recommending "stay the course" as the fundamental thesis is unchanged.
- There's only "incremental clarity" on the game slate in the medium term, MoffettNathanson said so the results are unlikely to provide an "epiphany" for investors who are only looking for faith that the company can execute on production. MoffettNathanson has a $214-a-share price target on the videogame publisher's stock.
- The news dragged on the entire videogame sector, one of only a few negative outliers in a higher market day. Activision Blizzard (NASDAQ:ATVI) fell 3.5% (and faced its own problems today), while Electronic Arts (NASDAQ:EA) fell 3%, Ubisoft (OTCPK:UBSFY) fell almost 5%, Zynga (NASDAQ:ZNGA) ended the day off by almost 2%, Skillz (NYSE:SKLZ) gave up more than 4%, and Roblox (NYSE:RBLX) fell 1.1%.
- And retail stock GameStop (NYSE:GME) fell 3.1%.
- Activision Blizzard (ATVI) was set to report earnings after the close; it's expected to post earning of 75 cents a share on bookings of $1.89B. Skillz (SKLZ) also reports today, and was forecast to post a loss of 9 cents a share on bookings of $88.8M.