Ericsson and Sony

I'm still bullish on Sony, but this bad news from Ericsson is something that needs to be watched.

http://techland.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2008/07/22/ericsson/

It was good news that the handset sales in the Sony/Ericsson joint venture were flat, but trouble at Ericsson could mean some red for Sony as well. I think the PS3 and BlueRay future will outshine the handset side of the business. As long as that at least remains flat I'm still bullish on Sony over the next year.

Video game sales soar 53% in June

This is great news and the fact that Sony hardware sales were up goes with what I've been saying aboutn Sony/SNE.

Sony Corp.'s PlayStation 3 bested Microsoft Corp.'s Xbox 360 console in June. The PS3 sold 405,500 units compared with just 219,800 for the Xbox 360. The higher PS3 sales were fueled by the launch of the highly anticipated "Metal Gear Solid 4," which is available exclusively for Sony's console. The game sold 774,600 copies, not including those bundled with the PS3.

AP Video Game sales soar 53% in June

I think PS3 sales are going to continue to rise over the coming year and they are going to start seeing some real momentum. If you are going to buy Sony, you better do it now. It was up 10% before the recent market correction and are back down to that 2 year low. We are not going to see this price again for a while.

zero for the year!!

Hard to believe I would be really excited to be at 0% gain for the year, but really I'm excited that I'm at 0% loss for the year. This is after one month of being up 12% for the year to -8% in less than a month and back to 0% today. The market this year has been a killer and I'm just happy to be breaking even, but I know that could easily change again. FNM and FMC are really a big part of the problem for me, but ATVID (Activision) has really come back strong and I'm not planning on selling any of it right now, even the FNM and FMC.

I wanted to do some profit taking on ATVI when it became more than 30% of my account, but now I'm looking at the future for them and I really want to ride it out a while longer. I know it is dangerous to have such a large holding, but I feel like it is one I know really well and I'm confident in it moving forward. I don't recommend following me in such a huge stake and I'm not sure I would buy more ATVI since it has seen such a big uptick in recent months. Be your own judge, but to me they are hitting on all cylinders and the merger with blizzard puts together two stellar companies.

Game On For Activision Blizzard

ATVI has bounced back nicely and since it is my biggest holding it tends to swing my account a lot. I have not checked it recently, but I'm sure it is finally recovering from the blood letting.

I'm still really bullish on ATVI and I'm glad I didn't do any profit taking at 36 even though it dropped back down to 31. This article Game On For Activision Blizzard is exactly what I've been saying for a while. The fact that the article talks about the Activision lineup and barely mentions the Blizzard side.

Blizzard has its sight set on 2009, where it plans to disseminate the next chapters for World of Warcraft and Starcraft, two online game titles that have fanatical followings globally.

Is even better since I think the Blizzard side has a lot more potential for huge successes than the Activision side. I don't think I've seen a better pair of companies combined into one. This is going to be big. This is one I'm going to be holding for the next nine months or so. Unless of course it triples, then I'll probably get worried and sell a bunch.

Why Sony?

If you are holding Sony, I don't think you should sell. If you don't own any, this is a great time to buy. It went up and down 10% over the past few weeks and it is again sitting at a two year low. I think they have a great product story over the next few years and will start to reap the benefits of some expensive and early stage investments. This is the type of news I'm talking about and this is just one of the three home runs that Sony is currently controlling.

http://videogames.yahoo.com/events/e3-2008/e3-2008-blogs/1227326

A Bear Market

Yes yes yes, all profits are gone for the year and what was looking like a stellar year may be a negative at this point. I took a real beating on FNM and FMC, but now that the blood letting is mostly over I'm willing to hang onto them. Edison took a giant leap back in the Enron days and they came steadily back over next two year (Just look at this chart and see the drop in 2001 and stellar 3 year return). I don't see why this will be any different. I'm planning on holding what I have and maybe buying some more in a few months if it starts to recover. As I've said before I like all my investments and I'm in them for the long term. Nothing has really changed except a general downturn in the market. FNM and FMC are not huge holding.

I agree with this article on dealing with a bear market.


Most of the negative has come from ATVI (Activision) dropping back down after a meteorific upturn. I'm excited about the Blizzard merger and hanging onto it especially since Blizzard is set to launch some refreshes to some of their most popular titles.

Current Holdings Starting July 2008

ATVI	$13.44	34.07	30.34%	154%
TTWO	$16.18	25.57	17.31%	58%
SNE	$43.88	43.74	8.57%	0%
DRIV	$47.72	38.58	8.25%	-19%
IBM	$117.07	118.53	6.33%	1%
USG	$38.33	29.57	5.27%	-23%
CASH		–	4.98%
FNM	$24.52	19.51	3.47%	-20%
AMD	$13.69	5.83	3.32%	-57%
EDD	$19.79	15.24	2.95%	-23%
FRE	$23.11	16.4	2.92%	-29%
EIX	$53.56	51.38	2.75%	-4%
STMP	$12.98	12.48	2.22%	-4%
TIVO	$5.89	6.17	0.88%	5%
JAVA	$17.27	10.88	0.39%	-37%

Wow, what a crummy month. I went from being up 10.3% for the year to 1.5% for the year. I've been burried in work so I haven't really paid close attention, but I think this was really a market correction and not a problem with my actual holdings. I'm very worried about FNM and FMC since they seemed to have dropped so much, but I'm willing to stick it out a little bit longer. Hey, it's all fun and we are bound to have up months and down months.