EA stock gains after report of Microsoft acquisition interest

Electronic Arts Inc. EA, +2.13% shares moved higher Monday after a lightly-sourced report that Microsoft Corp. MSFT, -0.15% had considered an acquisition of the videogame publisher. Gaming blog Polygon, in a longer article about Microsoft's difficulties in establishing exclusive games for its Xbox game console, reported that "a reliable source close to Microsoft" said that the name had been bandied about as a possible acquisition target to land some exclusive titles. Other potential targets mentioned in the story included Valve and PUBG, while Microsoft actually announced a gaming acquisition Monday morning, though its was not a game publisher. EA stock gained more than 2% in Monday trading with about an hour to go in the trading session, and has increased 41.2% in the past year as the S&P 500 index SPX, -0.67% has increased 25.2%.