A correlation between Diablo and the Stock Market

I invest for a living so can provide some context with one caveat.

The caveat is stocks move for all sorts of reasons. You could argue EA fell in November 2017 after the Star Wars Battlefront controversies as people thought they'd sell less, but the stock then recovered pretty quickly in the following few months.

On to ATVI, there's two events -- BlizzCon and results.

For BlizzCon the stock did drop because of BlizzCon, but I don't think it's because of Immortal. Immortal's generally seen as a positive despite the player reaction. Here are some comments from sell-side brokers after the BlizzCon announce and reaction:

  • Morgan Stanley - "We are bullish on Diablo Immortal"
  • Credit Suisse - "The Mobile Renaissance Begins - All Hail Diablo Immortal"
  • Macquarie - "We expect positive economics from the title for ATVI"
  • BofAML - "The game will be exclusively mobile and we think has a big opportunity given the 10s of millions of Diablo fans across multiple continents."

The main negative from BlizzCon wasn't Diablo: Immortal (as mobile titles have been expected for a while), it was the lack of a Diablo 4 launch as some people had assumed they'd launch that in 2019 -- earnings numbers look weaker with that assumption being pushed out to 2020.

For the drop on Friday after results, that wasn't about Diablo (which isn't new news anymore), it was about weak Destiny sales and weak Call of Duty sales implied by their lack of a guidance upgrade.

/r/Diablo Thread Parent