Nintendo stock tanks after ‘Pokemon Go’ investors realize company doesn’t own game
In response to the ubiquity of “Pokemon Go,” investors immediately began snatching up Nintendo stock like, well, Pokemon, probably because the company is most closely associated with the game from its original conception as a cartridge game for Game Boy.
Since July 6, when the game was released in New Zealand and Australia, Nintendo’s stock had jumped an astounding 63.7%, adding about $11 billion to the company’s value, Quartz reported.
In fact, just last Thursday, Ben Collett, head of Asian equities at Sunrise Brokers in Hong Kong, told CNBC that Nintendo’s stock was an attractive buy.
“Nintendo’s going to keep going [up], not just because of the “Pokemon Go,” but because of the whole book they have of characters, and extras,” Collett said.
With the success of “Pokemon Go,” we set out to discover if any of the little monsters were hiding within the walls of our own L.A. Times newsroom.
As it turns out, that might not be the case. What most didn’t seem to know was that Nintendo only has about a 32% stake in Pokemon Co., Reuters reported. The game was developed and distributed by Niantic Labs, a mobile gaming start-up spun out of Google.
Likely not wanting to face mobs of angry “Pokemon Go” players with several Charizards in their collective back pocket, Nintendo released a statement informing investors of this fact.
In response, Nintendo’s stock immediately plummeted. When the market in Japan closed Monday, the company’s stock was down 17%, or about $6.7 billion.
It was the most dramatic stock price drop Nintendo has experienced since 1990, Bloomberg reported.
Oblivious Canadian teens follow ‘Pokemon Go’ across border
Montana is full of sprawling wilderness untouched by man, a place where animals can thrive in bucolic splendor.
And of course, there are Pokemon in Montana, too.
Two Canadian teens wandered across the Alberta-Montana border, the U.S. Border Patrol revealed this weekend, while playing Go. So transfixed were the teens in attempting to capture fictional critters, they had no idea they crossed an international boundary.
Border Patrol agents apprehended the pair, and they were reunited with their mother on the other side of the border.
He really caught them all
A Brooklyn man claims he captured all 142 Pokemon available in the United States. Mind you, “Pokemon Go” came out only 19 days ago. That means he caught more than seven Pokemon on average each day.
Nick Johnson, 28, reports CNN, said he spent six to 10 hours each night walking the streets of New York looking for Pokemon. Some nights his girlfriend, also a Pokemon fan, joined him. Some nights she didn’t. Regardless, the man pressed on.
“You want to catch ’em all and become a Pokemon master, [it’s] the childhood dream, but it never really occurred to me I might be the first one to do it until I got pretty close,” Johnson said.
There are three Pokemon he hasn’t captured, though, but they live outside the United States. Fear not: Marriot Rewards offered to partner with Johnson so he can finish his journey.
Bogage and Andrews write for The Washington Post.
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