The most interesting stock market stories inspired by The Game Awards 2018!

As I write this post, The Game Awards 2018 ceremony is wrapping up. The Game Awards is the Oscars of the gaming industry. Many adults roll their eyes when we talk about gaming as entertainment. But, think about it! This year, Red Dead Redemption 2 video game has achieved the biggest opening weekend in entertainment history; not the video game history, but the entertainment history. It is now apparent that video games and video games companies are going to shape our lives for years to come. This week's most interesting stock market stories are inspired by The Games Award 2018:

Winner: Tencent Holdings (Ticker: TCEHY)

The Chinese video game maker has had quite a few bad quarters. Despite owning 40% of the Epic Games, the maker of the global phenomena - Fortnite, the stock has been in a free-falling mode for a long time. Earlier this year, the Chinese government put a freeze on the publishing of video games that the government deemed to be inappropriate. This has cost the company significantly in revenues and maybe even more importantly investors' sentiment and trust. This week though, in a surprise announcement, a new ethics panel has started reviewing game titles, and the news is welcomed by the gaming executives. It has not yet created a significant win in the stock market, but the story is undoubtedly a win for Tencent.

Visit Tencent's Stock Card now ...

Loser: Activision Blizzard (Ticker: ATVI)

A few companies can be so successful and pull off an epic fail in their stock price at the same time. Activision Blizzard has done just that. The company is a leader and is on track to benefit from the emergence of eSports category and has already invested significantly in developing its eSport line of business. The investment includes the development of an eSport league, athlete drafting and recruitment rules, and the development of the world's first eSport stadium for its popular Overwatch franchise. Activision Blizzard is a monster player in the video game industry. However, the shares of Activision Blizzard, Inc. dropped by approximately -42% since the beginning of October 2018. The video-game company reported 345 million active users in the last quarter, which was a 2% drop compared to the previous quarter. This caused the share price to tumble. Additionally, the company has had some fall outs with its fan base as a result of disagreement around the release of a mobile version of its popular PC game, Diablo. The current holiday season is expected to turn the fortunes for Activision Blizzard. Only time will tell!

Visit Activision Blizzard's Stock Card now ...

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Should you invest in Chinese stocks?

Considering the U.S.- China tariffs and trade war and the rapid fall of the Chinese companies' stock prices in the past few months, a drift is shaping up in the stock market community. On one side, people believe China is a trap. It's full of fraudulent practices, the numbers are baked, and the government is unfair and has control over everything. Other investors believe that the decline is temporary and marks a unique opportunity to invest in great businesses at affordable levels. Who is right? And, as stock market investors, what should we do? Should we hold on to our Chinese stocks, should we double-down and invest more, or should we sell them off?

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Tax-related stuff you need to know as a beginner long-term investor
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Filing for taxes seems to scare many people. Especially, new investors who tell us that they get scared of filing their taxes if they have bought or sold a few stocks. As always, if you break down a complex question into smaller parts, it is not too difficult to answer it. On this episode of How To Invest series, we talk about six tax-related things you need to know to glide through investment taxes.

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A new company that is shaping the future of work!
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This week our Stock Card premium members were quite excited. When the stock market is going down, long-term investors are all joyous to pick up a few shares of the companies that they have been patiently watching. The Stock Card Request that piqued our interest this week is a new IPO. While new IPOs are too young to be worthy of a spot in our portfolios, they are an indicator of the type of companies that are going to shape our future. We are all so accustomed to having Google in our personal lives to help us with the things we need. What about in our professional lives? What if we want to know the # of new users who signed up last week? We can't google it. Companies store a massive amount of data, but there is no google to retrieve such data organically and in simple spoken-language. That's where this week's Stock Card Request comes it. Elastic NV (Ticker ESTC) is a software developer that is among the leaders in the enterprise search software market. What an interesting and futuristic market it is, which is going to shape how we work in the future!

Visit Elastic NV's Stock Card now...

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That's it for this edition! Happy Weekend, folks! Don't forget to share this blog post with your friends if you find it helpful, and connect with us to share your thoughts and ideas