Activision Blizzard Inc. has answered the call and then some when it comes to increasing the combined market capitalization of Los Angeles County’s publicly traded companies.

The Santa Monica-based video game company, propelled by hits such as its “Call of Duty” series, gained $14.7 billion in market cap over the 12-month period ended June 30, a 34 percent hike that took it to $58 billion. The increase made it the biggest gainer in dollar terms on the Business Journal’s annual list of publicly traded companies for the second year running.

Activision added $14 billion in market cap for the previous 12-month period ending in June 2017; it’s market cap has doubled over the past two years.

“Activision has certainly proved a great investment,” said Lloyd Greif, chief executive of Greif & Co., a middle market investment banker in downtown Los Angeles.

Activision’s jump this year accounted for nearly all of the $15.4 billion net gain in market cap for this year’s list compared to last year’s list, propelling the cumulative total market cap for the 137 companies on the list to a record $686 billion as of June 29, the last trading day of the second quarter.

This year’s list contained seven fewer companies than last year as several companies merged and one (Breitburn Energy Partners) went bankrupt; comparing the change in market cap of the same 135 companies on each year’s list yielded a gain of $32.9 billion – or 5.1 percent – in market cap.

Large cap swoons

Activision’s success masked an overall mediocre market performance for local public companies: Both the raw cumulative gain of 2.2 percent and the 5.1 percent cumulative gain in the same-company comparison lagged the net 12 percent increase in the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index between June 30 of last year and June 29 of this year.

A big reason for the comparatively weak showing for L.A. based companies: four of the top six on the list registered drops in market cap over the 12-month period: No. 1 Walt Disney Co. (down $10.4 billion, or 6 percent, to $155.8 billion); No. 5 Edison International (down $4.9 billion, or 19 percent, to $20.6 billion); No. 2 Amgen Inc. (down $4.5 billion, or 3 percent, to $122.1 billion) and No. 6 Snap Inc. (also down $4.5 billion, or 21 percent, $16.5 billion). Those four companies alone posted a combined $24 billion drop in market cap.

Because of the large size of its market cap – roughly 22 percent of the cumulative list total – any drop in Disney’s capitalization appears outsized compared to other companies on the list. The 6 percent drop can be attributed in part to investor concern about the migration of entertainment audiences online.

“Disney’s stock has been under pressure as investors question Disney’s ability to compete against large technology companies, such as Netflix and Amazon, over the next five to 10 years,” said Paul Sweeney, an analyst with Bloomberg Intelligence. “In particular, Disney’s proposed acquisition of 21st Century Fox has weighed on the stock as investors worry about earnings dilution and potential integration risk if the deal goes through.”

No. 2 Amgen’s 3 percent drop in market cap for the 12 months ending June 29 came in part on investor concern that the sales of the some of the pharmaceutical company’s blockbuster drugs could erode as competitors market cheaper “biosimilar” drugs, Karen Andersen, sector strategist with Morningstar Inc., said in a February report on the company. Investors are pinning their hopes on a new cholesterol drug Repatha, which recently received approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, she said.

Investors in No. 5 Edison have a more local and immediate concern: Shareholders of the parent of utility Southern California Edison could be on the hook for billions of dollars in damages from last December’s Thomas Fire in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties – the largest wildfire in state history – if Edison transmission wires are determined to have caused the fire. That prospect prompted a selloff in Edison shares late last year, and the trend continued into this year.

And No. 6 Snap, which debuted in the same slot on last year’s list, has struggled to retain investor confidence since its initial public offering early last year. Those troubles didn’t matter much for last year’s list, since Snap was a newcomer, and any market cap value therefore added to the overall gain in market cap for the list. Not so this year: Snap’s market cap dropped 21 percent as the company’s revenue growth and the number of users of its app have consistently fallen short of investor expectations.

Big gainers

Activision’s huge gain in market cap over the 12 months ending in June reflects investor confidence in the gaming company’s ability to expand digital revenue and transition to mobile devices, according to Michael Pachter, managing director of equity research for Wedbush Securities in downtown Los Angeles.

“With its sales of additional content and in-game purchases, Activision is ahead of its peers in growing digital revenues,” Pachter said. “The company has also executed well on mobile and is ahead of most of its public competitors in exploiting e-sports, with its Overwatch League attracting a lot of attention.”

Activision and Disney earlier this month reached a deal to air Overwatch League competitions on ESPN and the Disney XD gaming website.

The other gainer among the top six, No. 4 Public Storage, saw its market cap rise by $3.2 billion, or 9 percent. That reverses the trend of the last two years, when market cap fell as the company’s share price dropped from unsustainably high levels and is now more in line with other real estate investment trusts, according to Jonathan Hughes, analyst with Raymond James & Associates Inc. in St. Petersburg, Fla.

Another real estate gainer was No. 7 CBRE Group Inc., up $3.9 billion, or 32 percent, to $16.2 billion. The company has strengthened its position in the commercial real estate market through a series of acquisitions, according to an April bond rating upgrade report from Moody’s Investors Service. The acquisitions enabled CBRE to offer more specialized services, which in turn has helped generate higher margins.

Acquisitions also have played a key role for No. 9 Live Nation Entertainment Inc., up nearly $3 billion, or 42 percent, to $10.1 billion. Investors in live entertainment promoter, ticketer and venue operation –which purchased Ticketmaster back in 2010 – have have so far shaken off a U.S. Department of Justice investigation into alleged antitrust violations resulting from the deal. Shares have risen over the past year on the company’s increasing penetration of mobile phone platforms for ticket sales and increasing partnerships and sponsorships for live events, according to a May report from Amy Yong, an analyst with Macquarie Research in New York.

Percentage movers

The largest percentage gainer on the list was No. 72 Apollo Medical Holdings, which saw its market cap jump more than 13-fold to $862 million. The health care management firm posted a 17 percent boost in revenue last year after it acquired Network Medical Management Inc.

Other big percentage gainers include No. 63 Arrowhead Pharmaceuticals Inc., up 883 percent, to $1.2 billion, with its most recent boost coming on U.S. and European government approvals for a drug to treat liver disease; and No. 51 California Resources Corp., up 502 percent, to $2.2 billion, after surviving the oil market collapse and getting the benefit of the rebound in oil prices.

The biggest percentage loser was No. 133 Cherokee Inc., the shoe and clothing brand company that lost more than 90 percent of its market cap in a tumble to $7.8 million. Company executives recently raised solvency concerns as they grapple with the termination of licensing agreements and a debt load of nearly $50 million.