Topic: How To Invest

Wall Street Stock Forecaster Hotline – Friday, January 21, 2022

Article Excerpt

MICROSOFT CORP., $296.03, Nasdaq symbol MSFT, is a buy. The company is the world’s largest software provider. Its Windows operating system powers about 85% of the world’s personal computers. Microsoft has now agreed to buy Activision Blizzard Inc. (Nasdaq symbol ATVI). That firm is a leading developer of video games for consoles, personal computers and mobile devices. Its top game titles include World of Warcraft, Call of Duty, Diablo, Candy Crush and Overwatch. Microsoft will pay $95.00 in cash for each Activision share, for a total of $75.0 billion (or $68.7 billion if you deduct the cash Activision holds). The company can easily afford this cost—as of September 30, 2021, it held cash and short-term investments of $130.6 billion. The purchase strengthens Microsoft’s Xbox video game businesses, particularly as more users play their games through online subscription services instead of one-time purchases of physical discs. Activision’s subscription service has 400 million monthly active players in 190 countries compared to just 25 million for Microsoft’s…