Brean Murray Stays Bullish on Activision Blizzard; Should Hold up Well Against Competition in the Fall (ATVI)

Video game publisher Activision Blizzard, Inc. ( ATVI ) on Friday caught some continued bullish support from analysts at Brean Murray Carret & Co.

The firm maintained its "Buy" rating and $16 price target on ATVI, which suggests a massive 39% upside to the stock's Thursday closing price of $11.49.

A Brean Murray analyst commented, "Recent announcements give increased visibility on looming competition for Activision's two largest franchises, Call of Duty and World of Warcraft. Microsoft's ( MSFT ) Halo 4 is expected to challenge COD this fall with a free season of 50 add-on missions, while ArenaNet's will challenge WOW this summer with the launch of its new free-to-play Guild Wars 2 MMO. We expect Activision to aggressive meet these challenges."

Activision Blizzard shares were unchanged in premarket trading Friday.

The Bottom Line
Shares of Activision Blizzard ( ATVI ) have a 1.57% dividend yield, based on last night's closing stock price of $11.49. The stock has technical support in the $10.50 price area. If the shares can firm up, we see overhead resistance around the $12.50-$13.00 price levels.

Activision Blizzard, Inc. ( ATVI ) is not recommended at this time, holding a Dividend.com DARS™ Rating of 3.3 out of 5 stars.

Be sure to visit our complete recommended list of the Best Dividend Stocks , as well as a detailed explanation of our ratings system here .

The views and opinions expressed herein are the views and opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of The NASDAQ OMX Group, Inc.

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