Casinos & Hotels

Casino Stocks Hammered on Macau Data

Gambling
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On Friday, the gambling control board of Macau released its report on the island’s gambling revenues for December and all of 2014, and the news beat down casino stock prices in early trading. The drop in month-over-month revenues was an astonishing 30.4%. The cumulative drop for 2014 was 2.6%, the first-ever year-over-year decline since the government began keeping records in 2002.

Casino revenue growth peaked in February, when revenues were 40% higher than they were 12 months earlier. Growth slowed each month before turning into a loss of 3.7% in June. Revenues have not posted an annual gain since.

A government crackdown on extravagant spending and corruption is being blamed for the decline in VIP visits to Macau casinos. The Chinese government cut the number of times a Chinese citizen may visit Macau and has trimmed the number of days a citizen may spend in Macau on a transit visa from seven days to five. The transit visa requirement generated a market for false documents that continue to operate despite the purported crackdown, according to a report at Forbes.

The casino stock hit the worst Friday morning was Melco Crown Entertainment Ltd. (NASDAQ: MPEL), which traded down nearly 7% to $23.73, in a 52-week range of $21.04 to $45.70. In 2014, Melco Crown’s American depositary shares (ADSs) lost nearly 37% of their value.

Las Vegas Sands Corp. (NYSE: LVS) traded down as much as 4.7%, at $55.40 in a 52-week range of $ 49.82 to $88.28. For the 2014 calendar year, Las Vegas Sands stock retreated nearly 27%.

MGM Resorts International (NYSE: MGM) traded at $20.41, down 4.5% compared with Wednesday’s closing price of $21.38. The stock’s 52-week range is $17.25 to $28.75. MGM’s stock lost nearly 10% of its value in 2014.

Wynn Resorts Ltd. (NASDAQ: WYNN) traded down 4.4%, at $142.15 in a 52-week range of $133.58 to $249.31. Wynn’s shares dropped nearly 25% in 2014.

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