The Alpha Algorithm Targets a Surprising Gaming Name

Founded in 2008, Santa Monica, California-based Activision Blizzard, Inc. (ATVI) is an American interactive gaming and entertainment company. Its titles have broken a number of release records. “Call of Duty: Black Ops III” grossed $550 million in worldwide sales during its opening weekend in 2015, making it the biggest entertainment launch of the year. The company’s franchises also include “World of Warcraft,” “StarCraft” and King’s “Candy Crush Saga.”

Activision Blizzard Inc. vs the S&P 500 over the past six months

Eight Top Investment Strategies Betting on Activision Blizzard Inc. (ATVI)

1. Hedge Fund Alpha

Based on publicly available disclosures, successful hedge-fund managers are investing in the stock.

2. Momentum Factor

The stock also is one of the top 120 large- and mid-cap U.S. stocks exhibiting relatively higher price momentum, as measured by a specific factor which historically has driven a significant part of companies’ risk and return.

3. Pure Growth

Activision Blizzard is part of a strategy that selects companies from the S&P 500 Index, based on three growth factors: current internal growth rate, historical earnings per share (EPS) growth and historical sales/share growth.

4. Large-Cap Growth

The stock is among the top 50 large-capitalization U.S. growth stocks generated through a rigorous 10-factor fundamental screening process.

5. IBD Top 50

A top stock based on Investor’s Business Daily’s proprietary trading formula to identify 50 stocks that meet one of seven different catalysts. The “CAN SLIM” strategy identifies companies with either fundamental (improving earnings, a new product) or technical (upward stock move on strong volume) catalysts.

6. Insider Buying

Activision Blizzard is among the U.S. public companies of which corporate officers, directors and shareholders who own more than 5% of each company’s stock are accumulating shares.

7. Large-Cap Alpha Growth

Activision Blizzard is chosen as part of an alpha-seeking index that selects and weights growth stocks from the S&P 500 Growth Index. The proprietary methodology uses price appreciation — among more traditional factors — and weights the constituents based on their respective growth scores.

8. Large-Cap Alpha Core

The stock is one of a tiered equal-weighted index of large-cap stocks selected from the S&P 500 expected to outperform the broader large-cap space based on an intricate methodology of ranking stocks according to their recent performance.

Portfolio Update

You were stopped out of your position in Amazon (AMZN) at $822.50 on Oct. 13 for a 15.03% gain.

You were stopped out of Johnson and Johnson (JNJ) on Oct. 19 at a slight loss of 3.14%.

You were stopped out of Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.B) on Oct. 13 at $142.00 for a 5.85% loss as the stock hit its stop price intraday, before rebounding sharply.

With eight Alpha Algorithm strategies still betting on Berkshire, I am recommending that you re-enter this position and place your initial stop at $136.50.

Sincerely,

Nicholas A. Vardy