Veteran player in the video game arena Nintendo (NTDOY 3.03%) scored a few points on the stock exchange Monday. The Japan-based company saw its U.S.-listed shares rise by 2% following an analyst's reiteration of his buy recommendation on the stock.
That bump was more than good enough to top the performance of the weakening S&P 500 index, which decreased by 0.4% on the day.
Nintendo stock is a buy, insists Bernstein analyst
Before the U.S. stock markets opened, Bernstein's Robin Zhu once again tagged Nintendo as an outperform (buy, in other words) at a price target of 9,500 yen ($63.11) per share. The video game company's most recent closing share price on its native exchange was 8,549 ($56.79), for a potential 11% upside.
The reasons for Zhu's reiteration weren't immediately clear. Perhaps it's not coincidental that it came the same day that Nikkei Asia's website reported that Nintendo aims to delay the rollout of a new version of its durably popular Switch handheld console. According to the financial news outlet, the company will launch it in March 2025 at the earliest.
Many pundits had expected Nintendo to begin shipping the device this year. According to Nikkei Asia's reporting, however, the company has elected to give more time for developers to create new games for it.
Nintendo has not yet officially commented on the article.
Slow and steady wins the race
The history of global business is littered with stories of impatient companies that rushed promising goods or services to market, and got burned for doing so. Nintendo's hardware releases have generally been well-received and ultimately successful, especially in the case of the storied Switch, so we can have every confidence its reasons for the apparent delay are sound.
