Author Topic: NCSoft Stockwatch  (Read 714514 times)

FatherXmas

  • Elite Boss
  • *****
  • Posts: 1,646
  • You think the holidays are bad for you ...
Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
« Reply #600 on: December 06, 2012, 07:46:32 AM »
I know- tried to account for that.

my estimate of 53,000 won for the "bottom" share value  was taken by taking the won value of the assets they're sitting on that people were reporting and dividing by the total number of available shares out there.   Essentially a "if we shut down, cashed out everything and just paid the shareholders, what would each share be worth?"
That's traditionally called Book Value.  However if you a believer in PEG ratios, the Price/Earnings/Earnings Growth, a "fair" price would be around 88,000 give or take.

Let's face it, the run up to 375,000 was very unwarranted.  The fundamentals simply didn't reflect the numbers required for that value.  I considered the slide that started in early October of 2011 as sanity/sobering up/getting clean/what stays in Vegas momment of investors that hopped on the NCSoft stairway to heaven now realizing that a P/E ration of 70 isn't a good thing when the company's trailing twelve months of earnings are now going down.  That plus the perceived delay in both GW2 and B&S that were suppose to be another Aion miracle in sales simply screamed SELL.  Then when the actual 3Q 2012 numbers were released about a month ago and showed that there wasn't another Aion sales growth miracle, the selling started all over again but this time the volume of shares traded was HUGE, over 10 times normal.

So now the stock is off over 60% from it's high and 33% since the 3Q numbers were released.  And I do believe that the article in The Korea Times kicked the stock back into a decline.  However, it's still hasn't broken it's 3 year low.
Tempus unum hominem manet

Twitter - AtomicSamuraiRobot@NukeSamuraiBot

FatherXmas

  • Elite Boss
  • *****
  • Posts: 1,646
  • You think the holidays are bad for you ...
Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
« Reply #601 on: December 06, 2012, 07:54:11 AM »
And while I'm here, Market Cap loss is meaningless unless you bought at the peak and are still sitting on the stock for the past 14 months hoping that the decline was irrational, rather than the run up from 55,000 to 375,000 in 34 months.

Reminds me of the home sales boom and bust cycle, both this last one and the one in the mid to late 1980s.
Tempus unum hominem manet

Twitter - AtomicSamuraiRobot@NukeSamuraiBot

NecrotechMaster

  • Elite Boss
  • *****
  • Posts: 388
  • is there a badge for that?
Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
« Reply #602 on: December 06, 2012, 07:59:12 AM »
it looks like the stocks still on the decline although much slower than yesterday immediately post article release

still, if you saw the companys stock you invested in drop nearly 10% in 2 days, something would definitely be wrong

if the stock continues on this trend of decline then ncsoft will eventually be very limited in what options it could do to potentially reclaim some of its investors trust

FatherXmas

  • Elite Boss
  • *****
  • Posts: 1,646
  • You think the holidays are bad for you ...
Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
« Reply #603 on: December 06, 2012, 08:17:50 AM »
But at some point the analysts will say it reached a fair value based on it's fundamentals, it's sector and compared to it's direct competitors.  Remember for every seller there's a buyer and if there isn't there isn't a sale and the price doesn't move.

There are two types of "people" who play the market, investors who buy for the long term or traders who try to make money based on short term swings in price.  Heck Apple is down 7.5% over the last week, 23% from it's peak like ten or so weeks ago.
Tempus unum hominem manet

Twitter - AtomicSamuraiRobot@NukeSamuraiBot

johnrobey

  • Elite Boss
  • *****
  • Posts: 952
  • CoH global: @Kristoff von Gelmini
Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
« Reply #604 on: December 06, 2012, 12:36:12 PM »
I may get flamed for this, but I don't particularly wish NCSoft ill or hope they go out of business.  I know many feel otherwise.  While I don't like their decision to sunset City of Heroes (nor understand their reasons for it), what's bothered me most has been the emotional impact felt by so many.  I want to see City of Heroes back, along with the dev team of Paragon Studios.  I'm still hoping NCSoft will sell the rights to City of Heroes, whether it be to Disney or any other company who can act as a worthy custodian for it. If that means NCSoft has to go out of business first, well okay.  I don't presently plan to subscribe to or purchase anything from them anytime soon.  Apart from my feelings as a fan of CoH, I don't like how they treated us as customers, basically stonewalling and ignoring us and others.  Hopping on board Boycott NCSoft is no problem for me since they aren't offering any products or services I want.  I'm still hoping for a swift rez for CoH, and otherwise still commited to what consumer actions we as fans can take to help bring about its restoration.  Thanks for letting me say my piece. 
"We must be the change we wish to see in the world." -- Mahatma Gandhi         "In every generation there has to be some fool who will speak the truth as he sees it." -- Boris Pasternak
"Where They Have Burned Books They Will End In Burning Human Beings" -- Heinrich Heine

Segev

  • Plan Z: Interim Producer
  • Elite Boss
  • *****
  • Posts: 2,573
Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
« Reply #605 on: December 06, 2012, 12:52:31 PM »
While I can understand the Machiavellian appeal of buying up NCSoftcore stock at a low point, I cannot in good conscience contribute to this. Whatever the motivation, whatever the intended outcome, we would be investing in NCSoftcore, however temporarily. In fact, my future purchase of anything with their name attached to it is fully dependent on, not their sale of the CoH IP and related pieces, but how they handle it. I can't really even tell you specifically what I would have to see from them that would assuage the bad feelings they have created in their handling of the situation, so far.
Well, one thing you could do if you wanted and were confident the price would keep going down: short sell the stock.

It pushes the price down, and you only "invest" in it at less than the amount for which you sold it. Whereas the ideal with normal stock trading is to buy at a nadir, hold on to it, and sell at a peak, the ideal with short-selling is to sell stocks you haven't bought yet at a peak, and then cover the sale later at a nadir. "Short-covering" is what the second step is called.

A short sale is actually a promise TO sell the stock to somebody at a given price. You have to give them what you promised by a certain time, but you can buy the stocks to cover the sale at any time before then.

Shot selling has the tendency to drive the price down just as buying has the tendency to drive it up. But there's no real market manipulation going on here if you start short-selling it right now. With it in freefall, many investors are likely doing similar as they are riding the trend.

Fulcrum

  • Lieutenant
  • ***
  • Posts: 61
  • The Phoenix Effect
Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
« Reply #606 on: December 06, 2012, 12:58:28 PM »
Right now it looks like the stock is being bunny-hopped between computerized automatic stock orders now that it's hit a certain threshold as they try to maintain it's value...   the synchronicity of the last few hours is pretty impressive. 


I can honestly say that if I owned stock in this company, I'd have to use a crowbar to keep my rump from eating the seat below me.

Atlantea

  • Elite Boss
  • *****
  • Posts: 877
Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
« Reply #607 on: December 06, 2012, 01:07:18 PM »
Right now it looks like the stock is being bunny-hopped between computerized automatic stock orders now that it's hit a certain threshold as they try to maintain it's value...   


I've never seriously followed stocks before. Could you explain how you can tell that's what's happening? I just want to understand. Thanks.

Segev

  • Plan Z: Interim Producer
  • Elite Boss
  • *****
  • Posts: 2,573
Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
« Reply #608 on: December 06, 2012, 01:24:16 PM »

I've never seriously followed stocks before. Could you explain how you can tell that's what's happening? I just want to understand. Thanks.
This is only a guess, but from what he said, it sounds like he's saying somebody is setting up computerized automatic stock orders to sell and buy at a specific price. This would only work without losing money if the sold stocks were being bought preferentially at the higher-than-market price so they're ping-ponging the same stock shares back and forth, creating the illusion that some of the stocks are trading at a fixed value. No stocks are changing hands out of a small cabal of buyers, so this truly is an illusion of activity at a certain price level.

His mention of "synchronicity" makes me think he is using a regularity of the price and timing of stock sales to detect it. He might just be looking at a plateau of price and seeing a suspiciously regular "bump" up in price back to a certain value that is implying this automated price-fixed mass sale.

Fulcrum

  • Lieutenant
  • ***
  • Posts: 61
  • The Phoenix Effect
Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
« Reply #609 on: December 06, 2012, 01:27:30 PM »
http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/overview?symbol=036570.KS

I was always an armchair speculator, even when I was making money on the markets.   Strictly amateur investing...   but it looks like someone has set up 'buy' orders at a certain price thresholds to bump the price up... and another 'buy' at slightly less... and another at slightly less than that, bumping the price up temporarily each time...  giving it that peculiarly 'even' bounce.

It could even be a single large group of investors buying and selling to keep the price plateaued.

It'l change when another big group takes a chunk of stock and drives the price back down, or the money runs out to 'bounce' it... at which point it may or may not enter freefall again.

At least, that's what I suspect.  It's entirely possible I'm completely wrong and it's just an aberration in the numbers.

Merseine

  • Boss
  • ****
  • Posts: 180
Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
« Reply #610 on: December 06, 2012, 01:58:41 PM »
I noticed something today in the Business Week link
http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/snapshot/snapshot.asp?ticker=036570:KS


52 Week High:   12/7/11 - 328,500               52 Week Low:     12/5/12 - 141,000

I know it's been commented on before - but I just realized that the High is one year ago tomorrow.
/em holdtorch

TonyV

  • Titan Staff
  • Elite Boss
  • ****
  • Posts: 2,175
    • Paragon Wiki
Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
« Reply #611 on: December 06, 2012, 05:02:16 PM »
Just in the interest of preparing everyone emotionally, I actually suspect a stock price bump before too long.  To be honest, I actually expected a bump after the announced layoffs in Seattle; typically investor knee-jerk reaction is that layoffs mean that a company is "trimming the fat," so to speak, and streamlining operations.  (Which is the official message NCsoft is putting out, by the way.)  The fact that it didn't bounce on the news is moderately interesting, in that to me it indicates that investors aren't buying it--metaphorically or literally.  But whatever...

Anyway, not that I'm going to go out and buy NCsoft stock, but a lot of investors (myself included) look specifically for stocks that have fallen or recently taken a beating to invest in.  Not that I'm looking to lose my butt on buying up junk stocks, but a lot of times investors buy and sell based solely on emotional reaction to some situation, such as a bad financial report or some bad PR move, but the company itself is a decently stable company.  In that kind of situation, a low stock price means essentially that the stock is "on sale," that it will likely go back up, and you can make money thanks to other investors' overreaction to something.

To be honest, I wouldn't touch NCsoft with a 10-foot pole, but then I'm not exactly an unbiased investor when it comes to the company right now.  Plus, I feel that I might have a better finger on the pulse of what it's going through than some investment adviser who doesn't know one thing about the game development industry or gamers themselves; that you really have to have a pretty good idea of what kind of games are market killers versus just DOA.  So right now, because NCsoft's stock is so low, a lot of investment sites actually are recommending that people buy it.  As a result, people probably will actually buy it, thus raising the price.

But long-term, I think that these investment advisers are assuming that NCsoft will be able to continue along like they have in the past, when in fact, things have changed.  Before, NCsoft was a growing company with a stable of profitable titles, new games in development, and a bright future.  Now, thanks to the actions of their executive management, they've killed off a game that had stable income, one that at least had potential (Tabula Rasa), and two of the games they were counting on being monsters did pretty well, but thanks to a pretty dramatic shift in business models, don't have a lot of potential for long-term stable income.  Oh, and they have one studio (Carbine) working on a game (Wildstar) that is probably at least another year or two out, if it ever gets released at all.  In short, their medium-term prospects don't look good.

In my opinion, it looks to me like NCsoft is basically conceding the Western market.  Just as Bugs Bunny cartoons are quite different from Japanese anime, Western-style MMOs are generally quite different from Korean-style MMOs.  Years ago, NCsoft was on the right track; they created a western subsidiary to handle the North American and European gaming markets.  Unfortunately, the past few years, they've done nothing but hamstrung that subsidiary, forcing it to make critical errors based on their own flawed perceptions and goals.  We're never going to be Korea, and if NCsoft had realized that two or three years ago, they might not be in the predicament they're in today.  Maybe instead of buying a baseball team, they would have invested in marketing and support for their North American and European operations doing stuff like, you know, making games.  There is, in my humble opinion, an extremely insightful and probably really accurate analysis of what I think NCsoft's motivations are over on Slashdot.  Probably a bit of a simplification, but still probably more-or-less accurate.

Anyway, I don't know that NCsoft will really completely go under.  A lot of it is going to depend on how well Blade and Soul and Guild Wars 2 does in Asian markets.  If they do well in somehow managing to find a way to scrape out a consistent source of income, they'll probably linger on.  But if they fail like Aion did, or if people just buy the box and don't continue investing in microtransactions at the level that I'm pretty sure we were with City of Heroes: Freedom, it's entirely possible that the company will either tank completely and go out of business, or more likely, get bought by someone else, stripped of its assets (quite possibly including IP), and sold off for scraps.  About the only thing I'm almost certain of is that they're pretty much dead in the water here, and if I worked for Arena.Net or especially Carbine, I'd be looking hard to jump ship before they close down those studios.

I guess time will tell and we'll see.  I do think it's telling that it looks like even the knee-jerk investors have lost confidence in the company.  It wouldn't surprise me if the stock price bumped up at least some as other investors try to get in as the elevator comes back to the ground floor, but for the long-term, I certainly wouldn't bet on the company and I still believe that there is at least a decent chance that someone will be able to get the IP for City of Heroes on the cheap who can revive the game.  Unfortunately, it also means that there will be opportunity for third parties to acquire the IP specifically for the purpose of not reviving it, to effectively prevent it from competing with their own products.  It really just boils down to exactly who it is and if they want they want to do.

Segev

  • Plan Z: Interim Producer
  • Elite Boss
  • *****
  • Posts: 2,573
Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
« Reply #612 on: December 06, 2012, 05:11:33 PM »
Unfortunately, it also means that there will be opportunity for third parties to acquire the IP specifically for the purpose of not reviving it, to effectively prevent it from competing with their own products.  It really just boils down to exactly who it is and if they want they want to do.
TF Hail Mary, GO!

Atlantea

  • Elite Boss
  • *****
  • Posts: 877
Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
« Reply #613 on: December 06, 2012, 05:59:51 PM »
here is, in my humble opinion, an extremely insightful and probably really accurate analysis of what I think NCsoft's motivations are over on Slashdot.  Probably a bit of a simplification, but still probably more-or-less accurate.

Hey Tony? That link doesn't work.


Valjean

  • Lieutenant
  • ***
  • Posts: 80
Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
« Reply #614 on: December 06, 2012, 06:48:16 PM »
I may get flamed for this, but I don't particularly wish NCSoft ill or hope they go out of business. 

I agree with you on this. In my mind, there's a difference between NCsoft the company, the NCsoft executive leadership, and the NCsoft employees.

As a company, NCsoft has done great things for the industry in helping to expand the MMO market. The NCsoft employees are probably great people who are just doing their job. I think the issue comes down to the leadership and their seemingly confusing strategies.

Little David

  • Boss
  • ****
  • Posts: 149
    • The Ad Ultimum Network
Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
« Reply #615 on: December 06, 2012, 07:47:22 PM »
I won't argue that it's a delimma worthy of Solomon when it comes to rooting for NCSoft's demise. I do recognize that the other dev studios and NCSoft's own line employees are going to be collateral damage whenever NCSoft feels the burn. It's not something I'm happy about.

... But the way I see it, the death of five different games and the studios that developed them shows just how willing NCSoft is to axe their own properties. City of Heroes proves that those developers and employees are never going to be immune, no matter how many people play the game or how long it lives. Tabula Rasa proved how far NCSoft is willing to go to get rid of a game and developer they want gone, and that was at a time NCSoft's stock prices were on the up and up.

srmalloy

  • Elite Boss
  • *****
  • Posts: 450
Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
« Reply #616 on: December 06, 2012, 08:07:44 PM »
There is, in my humble opinion, an extremely insightful and probably really accurate analysis of what I think NCsoft's motivations are over on Slashdot.  Probably a bit of a simplification, but still probably more-or-less accurate.

That is, at its base -- and I wasn't the one to write that comment -- essentially the same thing that I've been saying. That City of Heroes kept making a profit in the Western market, while NCSoft's vaunted grindfest MMOs kept flopping there, was a profound embarrassment -- it made them look incompetent, that they either had no nunshi for the Western market, or couldn't be bothered trying to understand what the differences were between the Asian and Western MMO market. With CoH buried, they can go back to shoving one grindfest after another down our throats in the hope that we'll suddenly realize how much better they are, and not have to face the possibility that they're doing the equivalent of camouflaging chicken to look like a salad and trying to feed it to vegetarians.

TonyV

  • Titan Staff
  • Elite Boss
  • ****
  • Posts: 2,175
    • Paragon Wiki
Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
« Reply #617 on: December 06, 2012, 08:20:06 PM »
I agree with you on this. In my mind, there's a difference between NCsoft the company, the NCsoft executive leadership, and the NCsoft employees.

As a company, NCsoft has done great things for the industry in helping to expand the MMO market. The NCsoft employees are probably great people who are just doing their job. I think the issue comes down to the leadership and their seemingly confusing strategies.

Yeah, but practically speaking, you can't cause the company harm without affecting its non-executive employees.  It's not like I sit around dreaming of releasing my frustration and anger on some visual effects artist who works at Carbine or some janitor who works in Seoul who might be out of a job if NCsoft closes down.  Still, I won't deny that I have quite a bit of ill will towards NCsoft for what they've been doing to the City of Heroes community and the staff of Paragon City.

What I think is being lost in feeling sorry for the employees who will be hurt if NCsoft tanks is that employee has already been hurt for being associated with the company.  Hell, employees are being hurt right now for being associated with the company.

Personally, I don't care so much if they go out of business, but at the very least, I want them to change.  And change hardly ever happens without some pain for motivation, and I can't think of any good way to make the executive leadership feel some pain without risking the poor guys and gals who just want to do a good job getting stuck in the middle.  As long as the status quo works for them, they're going to keep doing the same thing to other communities and other studios.

Some people have held that the "collateral damage" of people losing their jobs is too much, and that we shouldn't really be going after NCsoft like we are.  To me, though, the logical extension of that is that no matter how bad a company, no matter how evil its practices, you should never say a negative word about them or try to get them to change their ways because someone might lose jobs.  While I feel sorry for people who get caught in the crossfire, I just can't subscribe to that point of view.  People have to be able to do what they can to get companies to change.

Maybe it will cost some jobs.  Then again, it might get NCsoft to change, and who knows?  Our efforts today might be the difference between NCsoft shutting down Carbine studios and laying off even more people and allowing the management there to buy out the company and keep them employed.  And if we're able to follow through on making this a bigger issue than just one game, maybe we can make a positive change in the game publishing/development industry such that people rarely have to lose their jobs at all because of strategic organizational realignments.  In the short term it sucks, but in the long term I'm genuinely hoping that the dings that NCsoft is taking today will result in a net positive down the road--not just for the community (though that is our primary goal), but to to other studios, developers, artists, etc.

Meanwhile, if anyone does know of a way to change NCsoft's mind, to force the issue with the executive management while posing minimal risk to the soldiers on the line, I'm all ears.

Segev

  • Plan Z: Interim Producer
  • Elite Boss
  • *****
  • Posts: 2,573
Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
« Reply #618 on: December 06, 2012, 08:59:33 PM »
For those feeling for the potentially unemployed employees of NCSoft should it fall, I will point out some things:

  • If NCSoft falls, there is suddenly more room in the market they occupied.
  • Rival companies will form or expand to fill that void.
  • A fair number of the former NCSoft employees who had nothing to do with the bad decisions that caused it to fail will find work in the new or expanding companies.


If the economy is bad enough that they cannot, then they likely wouldn't have been long for employment anyway, as that means there wasn't really room for their jobs in the economy. Tragic, but not ours nor NCSoft's fault.

So wish them well, pray for them, and hope that the economy is good enough to support their jobs so they can find new ones.

Triplash

  • Elite Boss
  • *****
  • Posts: 1,248
Re: NCSoft Stockwatch
« Reply #619 on: December 06, 2012, 09:06:30 PM »
Some people have held that the "collateral damage" of people losing their jobs is too much, and that we shouldn't really be going after NCsoft like we are.

The way I see it, it's not that we shouldn't continue to press on; this is the most effective, perhaps the only, way we can initiate change. I just can't cheer and shout hooray over it, not over something that could cost blameless employees their jobs.

What we need to remind ourselves here is, any job lost in all this is ultimately NCSoft's doing. They've been making a series of management choices regarding the western market that are at best misguided, and reacting to the backlash from those decisions with continued poor choices.