Topic: Investing in Nintendo

Hi everyone!

As the topic states, recently I have invested my small fortune (fortune for students, probably pocket change for everyone else...) into Nintendo shares and I am a happy owned of 0.00002% of the whole company! I'm a newbie investor, don't know much about it but I did a quick calculations - right now Nintendo shares go for ~$16.44 a share, that's one of the worst period for the company ever, probably because of Wii U sales (as a comparison, in Wii era 8 years ago, one share would go for around $70). With NX most probably being announced during E3 this year, first mobile game coming up in March, Nintendo characters being licenced to Universal Studio for theme parks and possible movies I thought it's a perfect time to do some investing. Furthemore, Tatsumi Kimishima mentioned he plans to quadriple the profits (an article here on nintendolife). The way I see it only earthquake followed by tsunami in Kyoto could possibly lower the price further, but that's something none of us want to think about anyway

But as I mentioned, I'm a newbie investor so I thought I would ask you guys, what do you think about it? Is it a perfect time to invest? Or am I gonna lose my money? Would you consider investing (or maybe you did already)?

I put some money into Nintendo as well so as an investor I DEMAND an Oracle of Seasons and Ages remake for the 3DS. That is how this sort of thing works right? Too bad I'm not flush with cash so I could become one of those hipster investors that try to buy up chunks of companies to change how they do things to make them more money in the short term to move onto the next corporation to profit off of.

@mateq: That's something I've always kinda wanted to do for novelty purposes, but I don't know that much about stocks. Did you invest in NoA, or Nintendo Japan, or is there a difference?

I'd also like to know. I had taken a couple required business classes in college and everytime we checked any of the market trades, Nintendo never traded or changed in America. It was a mystery to me since nobody would bother to help me figure out why it was dead. Then I lost interest and forgot.

I once knew their acronym, but it's all one stock from what I remember

NTDOY is their Nasdaq ticker

It's dual listed. NTDOY. So you invest in OTCMKTS:NTDOY, because you cannot invest directly in Japan, but it's the same thing, converted. I once thought it was a great idea too, before the launch of the 3DS. So serious funds were invested at $33. So yeah you never know with these things.

OTC, not Nasdaq.

Do you get dividends from it?

Just remember, there's no guarantee that the share price will increase. If people react negatively to the NX, then the share price could plummet.

I'd imagine you can earn money from buying their shares now. The tricky part is working out when to sell them.

You do.

@Nicolai I've invested in the American one, but as someone mentioned above I believe they are dual listed so that doesn't matter. From what I've seen last time they did dividends was in early 2011, they've been on a decline ever since

@dumedum Yeah, I believe it is OTC, but I can see how it can be confusing for someone who doesn't know much about it (like myself, I also thought it's Nasdaq the whole time ). I suppose you did pick a bad timing to do the investment but I would have thought as well that the shares would rise with the release of 3ds... Hopefully Nintendo did learn on its own mistakes and won't price NX too high and will have a nice game line-up ready on the release date.

@crimsontadpoles Stock exchange is a bit of a gamble, but I'm really hope that the NX will be something amazing and share prices will rise (and that's not only because I've invested most of my money, but I want a nice system to play on as well )

its really not advisable to buy nintendo stocks, maybe if your into speculative trading, but not for a long term investment. Their declared dividens since 2012 are so small that the stock i bought was just a waste of investment. Just sell it.

To put into perspective, (if your only interested in videogame companies stocks) Sony pays almost 3x the dividends of Nintndo, Activision pays almost 9x, microsoft 12x. Those that i listed aretheir averages for the last 5 yrs

@diwdiws: Most people buy stocks in order to sell them at a higher price anyway, so if you really think that the Nintendo NX will turn it around (and that console gaming in general isn't on the decline), then buy it for that reason. If Nintendo went from 70 to 16.44, they could certainly go from 16.44 to 70 again, and if you're lucky though to have that happen, you're looking at a 327% increase on your investment.

Or, if you're like me, buy one share just for the novelty of owning a miniscule fraction of Nintendo and feeling part of the team.

@Nicolai: and thats the problem with people, speculative trading is gambling, its not a wise invetment practice, the proper way is to build your investment portfolio so that by the time you reach retirement age your portfolio will be valued at the hundreds of thousand or millions. A wise investor never sells unless you really need the money, you buy, buy, buy. Thats why determining what you invest in is so crucial. The dividends value is therefore very important since that is a bonus in addition to the value of your investment. Your investment goal should be a self sustaining future and not a get rich quick scheme

Seems like a fun a thing to do if you have the extra cash. I'm a newbie investor as well, any tips you can give me for first investments? Any good, online broker recommendations? @mateq

As someone who has owned and made money off of Nintendo stock, here's what I'll say. Be careful not to let fanboyism interfere with your decisions with your stock. If Nintendo announces something you love, but you think it might not sell well, it may be a good time to let go of the stock.

I sold my Nintendo shares when Iwata passed. I didn't want to take a risk with the volatility the stock would be subject to while Nintendo had no CEO. Since then, Nintendo has been very quiet, and the stocks have fallen. I'm not too surprised.

I'm going to wait and see how good of a CEO Kimishima is before I invest again.

Long-term investment isn't only valuable from dividends. Especially if you are doing it casually.

Thanks for all the replies, you made me super worry now
@diwdiws since I've already bought it, I will wait till E3 and see how it goes, then I'll probably sell it. It feel kind of pointless doing it now. Plus even if the NX would fail and they drop to ~$10 (don't suppose they could go lower? too much brand loyalty) it's still not that much loss of a money, at least not with what I've invested, so it's well worth the risk. However, I really like your advice about building porfolio, I'll do that if I take investing seriously one day

@Zizzy sorry, can't help you much here. I am from Europe as well so it was double the effort to buy stocks listed in America. I went to my bank (HSBC) and they said it's doable with their Global Investment program. But in the end I asked my father for help cause he plays on a stock market a lot, so I've just gave him cash and he bought it for me

@iKhan thanks for the advice. I agree, we don't know much, but I think Kimishima is a good CEO - I like what he has to say in interviews. He also seems to have more guts than Iwata (licencing Nintendo IP? cool move) and clearly know what he's doing. Maybe he's not the best from gamers point of view, but when it comes to business and profit I have faith in this guy. But let's wait and see what happens

Oh one more thing about investing in Nintendo for anyone interested:

Being a fan of the industry helps. A lot. Most investors know nothing about games, the industry, or it's history. They just react according to what seems popular and what they think Nintendo's earnings will be. This means that the share price often drops when Nintendo announces something bold, but then rises up when the "unexpected" outcome arises. If you have more knowledge about the industry, the "unexpected" is a little more predictable (stocks are still always guesses though).