Publisher stocks rebound on confident markets

Following massive losses on the stock markets across the world last week - the Nikkei for example lost over a quarter of its value as billions were wiped off company market capitalisations - the action taken by governments across the world have helped instil some confidence in the system and publishers' shares are finally moving North.

Midway was among the biggest percentage climbers, jumping 29.3 per cent yesterday, while Activision Blizzard was also a huge gainer, up 23.3 per cent on the day - that rise saw the company's stock recover to October 2 levels at USD 14.25, but is still some way off the September peak of USD 17.78.

Other pure videogames companies also saw hefty rises - Electronic Arts was up 11.7 per cent yesterday, Take-Two jumped 9.7 per cent and THQ rose 6.45 per cent in the US.

Some of the US multi-discipline publishers also saw big gains yesterday, with Microsoft posting an 18.6 per cent value increase, Time Warner a 13.2 per cent rise and Disney a 16 per cent jump.

Meanwhile in Europe Ubisoft rose 6 per cent and Infogrames jumped 16 per cent - although it wasn't good news all round, as SCi continued to degrade, losing a further 7.5 per cent, despite overall healthy market gains.

Rises in non-publisher game stocks were also evident with retailers also rebounding. GameStop found itself looking at a 15.2 per cent rise, while Best Buy was up 5.36 per cent and in the UK the Game Group was up 6.1 per cent.

And in Tokyo the market was similarly buoyant - Sony gained 16.8 per cent by the close of trading today, while Konami, Square Enix and Capcom all showed double digit rises. Nintendo's share price wasn't available from the Tokyo Stock Exchange at the time of writing.

So far Tuesday is off to a promising start, with Infogrames up a further 12 per cent on the day and Ubisoft up 6.2 per cent as of 10am BST.