Sony stock slides after Microsoft deal, SoFi stock pops after U.S. regulator approves bank charter

Yahoo Finance's Julie Hyman and Brian Sozzi discuss notable stocks in early trading on Wednesday.

Video transcript

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JULIE HYMAN: Well, we are still mulling over and digesting the huge deal announced yesterday, Microsoft to buy Activision Blizzard for almost $68 billion. That price, by the way, once you include debt, goes up to about $75 billion, Microsoft's biggest acquisition ever.

And a lot of sort of TikToks this morning, Brian Sozzi, on how the deal went down. Of course, Activision has been in a weakened position because of the various investigations it's had to undergo internally into sexual harassment, into gender pay disparity. The CEO Bobby Kotick has been under a lot of scrutiny. And as "Bloomberg" and "The Wall Street Journal" tell it this morning, Phil Spencer over at Microsoft, who heads up gaming there, had sort of been in talks with Kotick for a while.

They'd sort of gone back and forth. But Activision had also approached other companies, including Meta, the parent of Facebook. Didn't get any takers there. And then eventually, Microsoft is the one that prevailed.

BRIAN SOZZI: You still get the sense, Julie, this is a reluctant seller in Activision Blizzard and Bobby Kotick. I mean, he's been one of the biggest power brokers really in entertainment going on 10 to 15 years. But it was very interesting to see what "Bloomberg" reported in that profile, that behind the scenes look at the deal where Kotick actually reportedly reached out to Facebook/Meta about making a deal with them.

And it's interesting that Facebook/Meta would rebuff Activision Blizzard. Sure, they have cultural concerns here. But this is probably one of the most powerful companies in gaming, 400 million monthly active users. I mean, that is a significant, significant audience to bolt on to the initiatives in the Metaverse that, in many respects, Facebook is leading.

JULIE HYMAN: Yeah, but maybe they just didn't feel it, felt like it was too big, felt like it didn't make strategic sense.

BRIAN SOZZI: Or regulatory.

JULIE HYMAN: --acquisition--

BRIAN SOZZI: Or regulatory. Let's keep in mind, I mean, it's going to be hard for Facebook to get through any acquisition.

JULIE HYMAN: Yes, that is a great point also. And so now this morning, I think gaming folks, folks in that world are sort of taking a look at this different landscape. This combined company going to be the third largest by revenue in the gaming industry behind Tencent and behind-- now I'm forgetting the other one that they're behind. You remember?

BRIAN SOZZI: Nintendo?

JULIE HYMAN: Sony! Sony, which brings us to how Sony shares have been trading. You know there were some concerns here, it seems, about exclusivity, right, with the PlayStation. It seems like in the initial comments there, Microsoft has said it will come out with more Xbox exclusives, its own gaming platform. So it wouldn't shut PlayStation out entirely, by any means. But it seems like that Sony's falling on these concerns that maybe it's going to lose some of the piece of the pie.

BRIAN SOZZI: Yeah, and if you're Sony, you have to think now, what is your play? I mean, do you have, with the significant capital at your disposal and with the strength really that has gone back well over 10 years in the PlayStation, do you go out there and make a play for an Electronic Arts? What is your play? Do you try to go out there and make a play for Take-Two before it closes the deal on Zynga? I'm sure these are just some of the considerations Sony is now having inside its own boardroom.

JULIE HYMAN: I'm sure it is. So anyway, we'll continue to watch these stocks and see what happens. We're going to talk to Brent Thill over Jefferies a little bit later on-- he covers Microsoft-- to talk about all of that and also the, perhaps, cultural challenge of Microsoft having to absorb Activision, with its various issues.