The Fed's interest rate decision + AMD's quarterly figures + Siemens Healthineers grows strongly + Fresenius also surprises at the start of the year + BMW expects tariff cuts + Quarterly figures from the USA in brief

The Fed's interest rate decision

• Investors are now looking ahead to the next highlight of political significance today, Wednesday: the Fed's interest rate decision.
• Observers are eager to see how the Fed will react to US President Donald Trump's demands to cut interest rates.
• It is expected to resist the political pressure and not adjust its key interest rates.
• In view of Trump's erratic tariff policy, the environment for monetary policy is very uncertain.

Quarterly figures from AMD $AMD (-2.39%)

• Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) reported non-GAAP earnings of $0.96 per diluted share for the first quarter on Tuesday, up from $0.62 a year earlier.
• Analysts polled by FactSet had expected $0.94.
• Revenue for the quarter ended March 29 was $7.44 billion, up from $5.47 billion a year earlier.
• Analysts had expected 7.12 billion US dollars.
• For the second quarter, the chip manufacturer expects sales of between 7.1 and 7.7 billion US dollars.
• Analysts are forecasting 7.22 billion US dollars.
• Advanced Micro shares rose by almost 5% after the close of trading.

Siemens Healthineers $SHL (+0.4%)grows strongly

• The medical technology group Siemens Healthineers grew more strongly than expected in the second quarter (to the end of March).
• Sales rose by 8.7 percent to 5.9 billion euros, as the company announced in Erlangen on Wednesday.
• On a comparable basis, revenue rose by 6.8 percent.
• This excludes currency and portfolio effects.
• The company benefited from good business in imaging and the US cancer specialist Varian.
• Adjusted earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) improved by almost a fifth to 982 million euros.
• Savings from the restructuring of the diagnostics business also had a positive impact here.
• For fiscal year 2024/25, however, Siemens Healthineers was more cautious about earnings development due to the US tariffs.
• The company now expects adjusted earnings per share of between €2.20 and €2.50.
• Previously, the Group had forecast the lower end at 2.35 euros per share.
• Healthineers continues to expect comparable sales growth of five to six percent.

Fresenius $FRE (-1.21%)also surprises at the start of the year

• The hospital and pharmaceuticals group Fresenius continued to grow at the start of the year and earned a surprisingly high amount.
• "We have started the year 2025 with an excellent business development and confirm the outlook for the full year," said Group CEO Michael Sen in Bad Homburg on Wednesday.
• Adjusted for one-off effects, turnover climbed by seven percent to 5.63 billion euros in the first quarter compared to the previous year, according to the DAX-listed company.
• Adjusted earnings before interest and taxes (adjusted EBIT) increased by four percent to 654 million euros.
• Although the corresponding margin fell from 11.9 to 11.6 percent, Fresenius performed better than analysts had expected on average.
• The ongoing savings program and the core business with the flourishing generics provider Kabi once again provided a tailwind.
• In contrast, the hospital division Helios recorded a decline in earnings despite sales growth due to the loss of state energy subsidies in Germany.
• Group-wide, the result from continuing operations - i.e. excluding Fresenius Medical Care (FMC) - rose by 12 percent to 416 million euros.

BMW $BMW (+0.13%)expects tariff reductions

• The car manufacturer BMW is expecting tariff reductions in the summer and is therefore maintaining its outlook for the year.
• The tariff increases are likely to be only temporary in some cases and there should be reductions in tariffs from July 2025, the DAX-listed company announced in Munich on Wednesday.
• The current forecast takes into account tariff increases that have already come into force by March 12 as well as countermeasures taken by the company.
• "Due to the volatile development and the ongoing negotiations, the expected effects of customs duties can still only be depicted using assumptions," the Group said.
• BMW performed better than feared in the first quarter.
• Earnings before interest and taxes slipped by 22.5 percent to 3.14 billion euros due to the weakness in China, while sales fell by 7.8 percent.
• In the Automotive division, the operating margin (EBIT) fell by 1.9 percentage points to 6.9 percent.
• However, this was better than analysts' average estimates.
• At the bottom line, the surplus fell by a good quarter to 2.17 billion euros.

Quarterly figures from the USA in a nutshell

• Super Micro Computer Inc. $SMCI (+2.11%)exceeded analysts' estimates of USD 0.30 with earnings per share of USD 0.31 in the third quarter.
• Sales of USD 4.6 billion below expectations of USD 5.05 billion.

• Electronic Arts Inc. $EA (-0.56%)misses analysts' estimates of USD 1.08 with earnings per share of USD 0.98 in the fourth quarter.
• Sales of USD 1.9 billion above expectations of USD 1.55 billion.

• Corsair Gaming Inc. registered shares DL -.0001 $CRSR (+1.08%)misses analysts' estimates of USD 0.11 with earnings per share of USD 0.09 in the first quarter. Revenue of USD 396.8 million above expectations of USD 366.2 million.

Wednesday: Stock market dates, economic data, quarterly figures

• ex-dividend of individual stocks
• Deutsche Lufthansa EUR 0.30
• EssilorLuxottica EUR 3.95

• Quarterly figures / company dates USA / Asia
• 12:30 Walt Disney quarterly figures
• 13:00 Uber Technologies quarterly figures
• 15:00 Philip Morris | Pepsico AGM
• 22:05 Qiagen | Adtran | Avis Budget quarterly figures
• Untimed: Sandisk quarterly figures

• Quarterly figures / Company dates Europe
• 07:00 Fresenius | Siemens Healthineers | Vonovia | Klöckner & Co | Aker ASA
• 07:30 Telecom Italia | Auto1 | BMW | Hensoldt | Novo Nordisk quarterly figures
• 07:30 Siemens Healthineers | Vonovia PK
• 07:45 Jungheinrich | Ahold Delhaize quarterly figures
• 08:00 Schaeffler | Flutter Entertainment Quarterly figures
• 08:30 Fresenius | BMW PK | Siemens Healthineers Analyst Conference
• 09:00 Endesa quarterly figures
• 10:00 Fuchs | Mercedes-Benz Group | Wacker Chemie | Grenke AGM
• 10:00 Klöckner & Co PK | Schaeffler Analyst Conference
• 10:15 BMW Analyst Conference
• 13:00 Novo Nordisk Analyst Conference
• 14:00 Auto1 Earnings Call
• 22:05 ARM Holding Quarterly Results

• Economic data

08:00 DE: New orders March seasonally adjusted FORECAST: +1.0% yoy previous: 0.0% yoy | Manufacturing turnover March

11:00 EU: Retail Sales March Eurozone PROGNOSE: +0.1% yoy previous: +0.3% yoy

20:00 US: Fed, outcome of FOMC meeting Fed funds target rate FORECAST: 4.25% to 4.50% previously: 4.25% to 4.50%

No time given: PO: ECB annual meeting

$EA (-0.56%) has lost 22% in one month

The maker of EA Sports FC has lowered its forecast for the year, mainly due to a mid-single-digit decline in annual live service bookings.

But also because of Dragon Age The Veilguard "Failguard", which only reached 1.5 million players.

Graphic: Gagadget.com

Do you remember Mass Effect? I'm sure you do, right? I bet most of you have at least heard of it. A really good single-player RPG series. Also interesting for shareholders, Mass Effect is a powerful franchise, millions of fans and multiple awards. Similar to GTA for Rockstar $TTWO (-0.36%)

The ingenious studio behind it is called BioWare. StarWars Old Republic, Mass Effect and Dragon Age, that's all you need, at least back then.

Everything was better back then, and in the gaming industry that's true in some areas.

EA is working on a new Mass Effect, and I have a fear that it will also be a flop when I look at the whole thing, behind the scenes.

The question is, which bandwagon is Mass Effect on, if it's the same direction as Failguard then you could re-buy. Yes, I have EA on my watchlist.

Gaming stocks drive shareholders away, but that's not the point today.

There are certainly satisfied buyers of the game, but most gamers have been scared away by the studio, criticism has been completely ignored and even partially blocked.

Why the game sold so poorly is not the point.

Game director Corinne Busche has left the studio, allegedly due to a job offer she couldn't refuse.

I don't think so, because she is largely responsible for the downfall of Dragon Age.

I think EA made her the suggestion that she leave the studio or they'd just fire her.

There are also rumors that BioWare (studio in Edmonton) is closing, which has been happening a lot lately when studios don't deliver. I wouldn't be surprised, but like I said, rumor mill.

The fact is, if a new Mass Effect comes out and it has the same spirit as Dragon Age Failguard, it won't sell.

Has anyone played Mass Effect or Dragon Age? I would be interested.

Sources:

Play3.de:

https://www.play3.de/2025/01/23/ea-senkt-umsatzprognose-dragon-age-the-veilguard-und-ea-sports-fc-25-unter-den-erwartungen/

MyMMO:

https://mein-mmo.de/dragon-age-veilguard-chefin-verlaesst-bioware-corinne-busch/

$6758 (+3.76%) Sony is a diversified company in consumer electronics, music and movie business, image sensors, another financial services division, etc.

But today it's all about consumer electronics, the Gaming & Network Services division accounts for 32% of sales. It's also about the Playstation games console.

The Playstation 5 sales figures total 66 million units (as of December 2024). 116 million users are registered in the Playstation Network and around 47 million users use the paid subscription (13% of revenue).

Today, however, we are talking about Playstation Studios. Gaming studios that only belong to Sony.

This means that the games are almost always only released on Playstation.

In the gaming industry, the name Playstation Studios stands for quality, at least in the PS4 era, but Sony is currently struggling with massive problems.

Money is being burned here, but really burned.

For information: AAA games cost an average of 300 million US dollars. According to a leak, Marvel's Spider-Man 2 cost 315 million.

According to the BBC, GTA 6 could cost up to two billion US dollars to develop.

In addition to the money, a lot of time is also invested, of course.

Guerilla Games, a talented studio from Amsterdam, needed the following for the game Horizon Forbidden West 2022: 300 developers, 5 years and 212 million US dollars.

By mid-April 2023, around 8.4 million units had been sold worldwide, so Sony can be satisfied, it's solid for a single platform.

Sony has disclosed the development costs of two major games as part of the court case regarding the Activision-Blizzard and Microsoft takeover, they don't actually disclose such production cost information.

Jim Ryan (pictured) succeeded Kodera as President and CEO of Sony Interactive Entertainment (Playstation) in April 2019.

In 2022, he declared that Sony wanted to launch 12 live-service titles by 2025.

What are live service games?

(Written by Ryktes on Reddit)

A live-service game is a game that has been developed with the sole purpose of keeping people playing for as long as possible, in the hope that those players will pay for microtransactions. The most common way that live services encourage engagement is by making the player feel like they're losing something if they don't return to the game regularly.

• Are there Take-Two Interactive $TTWO (-0.36%) shareholders?

In 2016, Rockstar achieved a turnover of half a billion US dollars with GTA Online.

• Electronic Arts $EA (-0.56%)

EA generates 73% of its estimated revenue (7.5 billion US dollars) from in-game purchases and subscriptions.

PS: Share price has just fallen by 9%, the company expects net revenue from live services to fall.

• Microsoft $MSFT (+0.09%)

The subsidiary King Games (Candy Crush Saga) has a turnover of 20 billion US dollars.

• Sony $6758 (+3.76%)

Bungie acquired for 3.6 billion US dollars, over 160 million US dollars in microtransaction revenue between 2017 and 2019.

Live service games can be a goldmine, but they don't have to be.

Sony, the second-largest gaming company after Tencent $TCEHY (-2.43%) was actually missing just that. Single-player games were their thing, with games like God of War, Ghost of Tsushima or Marvel's Spiderman, XBOX was finally left behind because Microsoft overslept an entire generation.

But single-player games only bring in money with purchases, after that it stops.

But now Jim wanted to get a slice of the pie and produce a real cash cow. A huge cash cow meadow was to be created out of nothing.

Let's see what happened to these plans. Jim has since resigned, leaving his successor with a billion-dollar grave.

Two games were released during this time.

• Helldivers 2 sold over 12 million copies on Playstation 5 and PC by 05.05.2024. A real hit.
• Concord 25,000 units sold after two weeks! 25k The studio was even acquired during production. According to the sources quoted by Sacred Symbols, the production of Concord cost as much as 400 million US dollars. The studio is defending itself against these sources, but insiders are now piling on and confirming this. Sony closed the studio after two weeks... Firewalk Studio worked on the game for a total of 8 years, Sony was involved from the very beginning.

As of 01/23/2025, Sony has canceled 7 of 12 live service games.

Sony's management has wasted half the generation pursuing live-service games, only to cut almost all of them.

Bluepoint Games as an example, a developer of the Demon Souls remake.

This studio specialized in single-player and did damn well with it, gamers and press were always satisfied.

Now this studio has been given the task of developing a game with live service game elements. Bluepoint Games has no idea how this works, but thinks Okay Okay Okay if that's what the boss wants, we'll do it.

Video games are not always video games. Single-player and L-S-G are as different as apples and oranges.

Imagine Elon Musk now wants to produce cars with fuel, 12 models at once. Something like that can work, but it doesn't have to.

I didn't think it was a bad idea to produce live service games on the side.

But there were just too many.

I don't know how much the loss is, but if I had to bet, 2.1 billion US dollars.

With a net profit of 6.7 billion US dollars (2024), Sony can handle that.

However, important games will now be missing, Sony is lucky that Microsoft is no longer interested in selling consoles.

In conclusion, I have to say that it was the right move to pull the plug early on. Otherwise Sony would be burning more money.

Sources:

Gamespot:

https://www.gamespot.com/gallery/sonys-live-service-game-status-report-canceled-released-shut-down/2900-6143/#1

ScreenRant:

https://screenrant.com/sony-cancels-live-service-games-god-of-war/

Wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sony

Play3:

https://www.play3.de/2024/11/08/ps5-absatzzahl-aktive-psn-nutzer-spieleverkaeufe-sony-veroeffentlicht-umfangreiche-statistiken/

Play3:

https://www.play3.de/2023/10/02/playstation-live-service-fokus-war-fuer-die-studios-eine-unangenehme-umstellung/

Jason Schreier, US American journalist

Bloomberg News, news agency

On the watchlist for 3 months and waiting for a good time.

All of these shares reached new ALL-TIME HIGHS at some point today ⤵️

Nvidia $NVDA (+3.41%)

Amazon $AMZN (+0.55%)

Netflix $NFLX (+0.31%)

Walmart $WMT (+0.05%)

JPMorgan $JPM (-0.13%)

Goldman Sachs $GOS0

Palantir $PLTR (+4.6%)

Blackrock $BLK

American Express $AXP (+1.25%)

Arista $ANET

Apollo $APO PR A

Blackstone $BX (+2.94%)

Booking $BKNG (-1.37%)

Instacart $INSTA (+0%)

Caterpillar $CAT (+2.42%)

Capital One $COF (+1.3%)

Discover Financial $DFS

Electronic Arts $EA (-0.56%)

GE Vernova $GEV (+1.54%)

Hilton $HLT (+0%)

Howmet $HWM (+2.44%)

Interactive Brokers $IBKR (+3.93%)

$KKR (+4.85%)

Cheniere $LNG (+0.42%)

Morgan Stanley $MS (+1.4%)

Marriot $MAR (+1.31%)

Nasdaq $NDAQ (-0.5%)

News Corp $NWSA (+1.17%)

Oracle $ORCL (-0.15%)

Palo Alto $PANW (+1.41%)

ServiceNow $NOW (-0.5%)

Steel Dynamics $STLD (+2.91%)

Stryker $SYK (-0.39%)

Royal Caribbean $RCL (+0.64%)

Reddit $RDDT (+2.35%)

Trade Desk $TTD (-1.93%)

Visa $V (-0.42%)

Wells Fargo $WFC (+0.09%)

🐺 CD Projekt: Of sorcerers and cyberpunks - the masters of digital worlds 🏙️

CD Projekt, a company based in Poland, specializes in the development and publication of video games. Founded in 1988, the company began as an IT service provider and has since developed into one of the most renowned names in the global gaming industry.

Historical development

$CDR (+0.93%) The company's origins lie in Optimus S.A., which began as an IT service provider. A decisive milestone in the company's history was the acquisition of game developer CD Projekt RED Sp. z o.o. in 2009, which marked the company's entry into game development and laid the foundation for its current success. In 2012, the company was finally renamed CD Projekt S.A., underlining the transition to a pure game developer.

Business model and core competencies

CD Projekt specializes in the development of story-driven role-playing games and has thus achieved an outstanding position in the industry. The company is particularly known for its ability to create deep, immersive game worlds that are popular with players worldwide. Its best-known productions include the award-winning "The Witcher" series, which has established itself internationally as one of the most successful role-playing games.

In addition to game development, CD Projekt also operates the digital distribution platform GOG.com, which provides an additional source of income and further diversifies the business model.

Future prospects and strategic initiatives

The future of CD Projekt rests on two central pillars: the further development of existing franchises and the creation of new intellectual property rights (IPs). The company is investing heavily in its technology and development processes to make future releases smoother and to further increase the quality of its games.

Another important strategic focus is the expansion of the business into other media. An outstanding example of this is the successful Netflix adaptation of "The Witcher", which has not only significantly increased brand awareness but also opened up new sources of revenue.

Market position and competition

CD Projekt is in direct competition with major game developers such as $TTWO (-0.36%) , $UBI (+4.79%)
$EA (-0.56%) . Nevertheless, the company manages to stand out from the competition thanks to its special focus on high-quality, story-based single-player experiences. This specialization has earned the company a loyal fan base and contributes significantly to its strong market position.

Total Addressable Market (TAM)

The global market for video games is growing continuously and offers CD Projekt enormous potential. With the increasing proliferation of gaming platforms and the growing demand for high-quality and immersive gaming experiences, CD Projekt has excellent opportunities to capitalize on this growing market.

Share performance

TR 14k % since IPO and -2.3% over the last three years.

Development

CD Projekt is currently one of the smaller game publishers in terms of sales. However, this does not mean that it has to stay that way - the potential for future growth is certainly there.

CD Projekt is also currently at the lower end of the growth scale, which is mainly due to the fact that the last major game release was some time ago. However, new titles are already in development. Compared to other game publishers, CD Projekt also has a significantly smaller number of IPs, which has given them less flexibility to date.

In terms of gross margin, CD Projekt is neither at the top nor at the bottom of the rankings. However, the margin, which has fallen recently, should rise again slightly following the release of the new projects. This puts the company in line with the industry average.

In contrast, CD Projekt clearly stands out in terms of its net profit margin. Even after a decline, the company is still twice as good as many of its competitors and thus clearly holds its own at the top.

In terms of earnings per share (EPS), CD Projekt is remarkably consistent in positive territory, while many other manufacturers often slip into negative territory in this respect.

CD Projekt's free cash flow (FCF) has also been positive for some time now, which illustrates the company's forward-looking planning and intelligent management. Despite the continuous investment in the development of new projects, the cash flow remains stable, which speaks for the financial health of the studio.

Another advantage for CD Projekt's shareholders is the almost non-existent stock-based compensation (SBC)

In contrast to many other companies that use buybacks to compensate for dilution effects and bring money to shareholders, CD Projekt can largely do without such measures

The ratio of net debt to EBITDA is also slightly negative at CD Projekt

However, CD Projekt is the most expensive gaming company in terms of EV/EBITDA ratio, reflecting investors' high expectations for future growth and the success of new projects.

Part 2: https://getqu.in/UAF5xR/