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So, Games Workshop’s Stock Price. Alright, I promise I’m not being a Games Workshop apologist. Games Workshop has made a lot of bad moves lately, not the least of which was the revelation that they were paying their employees poorly, or the allegation that they have been running FOMO campaign after FOMO campaign that have been repeatedly going after the “whales” (as Discourse calls them), and definitely not the least of which was the revelation of what (may possibly?) have been a real NDA from Games Workshop filled with all kinds of bad-faith clauses.

Games Workshop has had its share of bad press lately. There’s been calls for a boycott (which I think is silly, for reasons I explained here).

But now we’re starting to see the doom-saying articles and YouTube videos that are pointing to Games Workshop’s tanking stock price.

Is Games Workshop Stock Price in Free Fall?

As exhibit A, I give you the most recent YouTube video from Arch (who, it should be noted, is an absolute Games Workshop hating troll who makes his living off of saying bad things about a company he hates).

“Games Workshop Down 19%!”
GW Stocks Plummet as NDA Disaster Continuous!” (I assume he meant “continues” there, but whatever.)

Taking Off the Blogger Hat and Putting On the MBA Hat

Here’s the deal, and for this article I am going to be taking off my hobby enthusiast hat and putting on my MBA hat, a hat which, as far as I can tell, Arch doesn’t have.

Case in Point. This is an actual screenshot of the stock graph shown in the Arch YouTube video, in which it shows Games Workshop stock price dropping by 19%. But if you’ll look really close up there at the top, the graph is showing ONE MONTH of stock prices.

In Discourse’s recently video she opened with a skit saying “Come on people! The stock is dipping and the board are not pleased!”

Now, I love Discourse and was excited to have her on my channel, but I think that both Arch and Discourse are not looking at Games Workshop’s stock prices through a businessperson’s lens. They’re looking at them through a day trader’s lens. If you bought stock a month ago and were planning to sell it today, then, yes, you’re out 19%. BUT.

Real Stock Market Wisdom About Games Workshop’s Stock Price

Let’s look at real investment advice, coming from a real investment banker: Lance Roberts, in his book Real Investment Advice PRO, writes:

“I’ve been in this business for over forty-five years now, so I’ve had a lot of experience. In addition, I am not a very emotional person. In fact, almost all the great investors I know are unemotional. If you’re emotional then you’ll buy at the top when everybody is euphoric and prices are high. Also, you’ll sell at the bottom when everybody is depressed and prices are low. You’ll be like everybody else and you will always do the wrong thing at the extremes.

“Therefore, unemotionalism is one of the most important criteria for being a successful investor. And if you can’t be unemotional you should not invest your own money, period. Most great investors practice something called contrarianism. It consists of doing the right thing at the extremes which is the contrary of what everybody else is doing. So unemtionalism is one of the basic requirements for contrarianism.”

Basically what I’m getting at here is that the stock market is the long game, and if you can’t afford to play the long game, you shouldn’t be investing.

Why?

Because both Arch and Discourse are looking at this extremely shortsightedly. Let’s look at some graphs.

The first is the 3 month graph, which does indeed show a precipitous drop in Games Workshop stock price. It might lead someone to think that there’s a problem.

But the second graph is one year, and the one year graph shows some rises and falls, but generally, things are on a pretty even keel.

The two year graph shows something that is more telling: it shows the big dip where Covid hit and everything took a downturn, and then it shows the rapid growth of the stock price. This is, as has been commented on numerous times, because COVID locked everyone in their houses and they all started painting miniatures. There’s a good argument to be made that during this time, post COVID, the stock price was artificially high.

The last graph is the one we need to focus on, however. It’s the five-year graph. And on the five year graph, the one-month bump in the road is hardly worth noticing. No CEO is going to be fired for a one-month drop in stock price, and it’s even harder to link that drop in stock price to the NDA or the FOMO or Warhammer+ or poor pay.

What Are the Most Plausible Reasons For Games Workshop’s Stock Price Drop?

Here’s the most plausible causes of the VERY SMALL drop in Games Workshop stock price.

#1. Supply Chain Problems:

We all joke about supply chain problems now because everyone has supply chain problems, but the truth is that, well, everyone is having supply chain problems. From getting shipments in from China, to paying extra for containers, to trying to find truck drivers–yes there’s a massive truck driver shortage–to getting stockists in a labor shortage to handle all the material, you’ve got the ideal situation for a drop in stock price. And there’s no secret that the labor shortage is hitting the UK and their stupid Brexit policies far worse than they’re hurting the rest of the world.

#2. The market is correcting itself.

COVID saw Games Workshop stock rise to all-time highs because so many hobbyists were at home buying and painting minis. But there could be a real move in investors to take Games Workshop’s stock back down to a more realistic, pre-COVID level. Remember: during COVID Games Workshop’s profits were the highest they’ve ever been–30% higher. There’s a natural assumption that with other hobbies available (like going outside) the sales numbers are going to come down. Nothing wrong with Games Workshop–it’s just that COVID is ending (we hope).

#3. Cutting dividends.

On September 16th, Games Workshop announced that they would be cutting their dividend payout, and stock dropped 6.72%. There may be many reasons for them cutting their dividend payout, but this decision had to have been made long before the NDA was ever a blip on anyone’s radar. According to Capital.com “The company said it had experienced pressure on freight costs and currency exchange rates during the last three months.”

#4. The Market Is Just Unpredictable.

The most realistic explanation for this is just that: the market is unpredictable. Stocks rise and fall. And this little dip–because, to be perfectly clear, this is a LITTLE dip–is not the end of the world. It’s the nature of the stock market to go up and down and no one outside of reactionary day traders are going to start selling Games Workshop because it fell in the last month.

Conclusion about Games Workshop’s Stock Price

No, the sky is not falling, and headlines that claim that it is are merely clickbait. Anyone who knows anything about finance knows that hiccups happen.

Look, I’m not trying to gloss over Games Workshop’s mistakes–they have made many. And they are ultimately answerable to the shareholders. But as I mentioned in the boycott article, one Reddit boycott thread with 18k upvotes versus 4 million monthly organic hits to Games Workshop’s website kinda means… I don’t think the investors are paying attention to all of these things. In finance, the wording of an NDA delivered to some YouTubers is completely off their radar in terms of concerns. Dividends matter. Profits matter. Let’s wait and see the next quarterly report before we declare the sky is falling.