Casino Stocks Fall Sharply on Macau Revenue Growth, Investors shouldn't be quick to jump ship

The Major Casino players have been on quite a run during the late summer months, seemingly hitting new highs daily. The front runners have been Las Vegas Sands (LVS), Wynn Resorts (WYNN) and MGM-Mirage (MGM) and the almost meteoric rise was substantially due to the expectations of growth in the sector in Far East regions like Macau.

Today's news has given major Casino players quite the haircut. LVS and WYNN, which are two of the biggest players in Macau were most hurt by the news that year over year Revenue growth for gambling in the region would be only 55%. Only 55%? That's it, ballgame over. Not so fast, but as with all things growth, and you better believe it Casinos are now growth oriented businesses, comes the gift and the curse that is expectations. The Morgan Stanley analyst who reported views of a softer than expected growth rate was expecting growth to top 75% year over year in the region. When you're talking about huge growth, and "miss" will lead to deflation and some investor panic.

Sometime though, growth numbers get thrown around in bunches ever so higher and it takes a session of humility to bring those valuations in check. I think we got that today and Macau, even at more realistic growth projections is still the real deal as the biggest gambling spot on the planet. So as LVS and WYNN drop 12% and 10% respectively, its time to appreciate the opportunity that has finally been given to own these companies. The casino operators will be a sustainable and substantial business going forward and as a long term investor owning a Casino has got to be right up there with owning a Stock Exchange, an Alcohol company, Food & Beverage, Diapers, Soap and Taxes (If you could invest in a piece of a good government!).

The last time I had to chance to speak about Casino stocks was almost 2 months ago ("Gambling on Gambling") and of the 5 companies I mentioned I thought MGM, LVS and WYNN were the only ways to consider playing, leaving Trump (TRMP) and Harrah's (HET) by the way side. My recommendation on a valuation and forward basis at that time was MGM simply because it was very well positioned in its growth prospects and had not received an outlandish P/E ratio that would bring about higher downside risks. When I wrote the article I said that LVS had been the Tortoise, WYNN was the Hare and MGM might just end up being the Lion.

Since the article here's how things have fared.
LVS: +52%
WYNN: +48%
MGM: +29%
HET: +3%
TRMP: -6%

Its clear that the Casino stocks have done very well of late, and I'd love to toot the horn but I missed the party too. I wrote about the stocks but didn't own a single one and while MGM has seen LVS and WYNN breeze past it in terms of gains I'm sticking with MGM as my Lion. The 10%+ haircuts to WYNN and LVS make them more attractive going forward but LVS has a P/E of 135 and forward P/E of 30, while MGM sits at P/E ratios of 30 after its 3% drop today. To me LVS has a lot more to sustain in order to continue rising and any hint of a slow down in growth, like today, will be met with much bigger waves by the market.
Then again sometimes you just gotta hit 16.

Disclosure: Author holds no position in any companies mentioned above at the time of writing

Yahoo's New Search Tool shows how far ahead Google is

Google (GOOG), the dominant player in search and search advertising, is seeing its competitors constantly nipping at its heels and it seemingly ignores them and continues to innovate. While Yahoo (YHOO), Microsoft (MSFT), and Interactive's Ask (IACI) are trying to revamp, recreate and reinvigorate the search experience in the hopes of gaining market share and hence more advertisers, Google is padding its lead and running away with first rate technology innovations.

Ask.com has some neat complete search functions and combines results of all types of media and even includes little previews, but it is still a minor player in the search game. Microsoft's failed MSN unit is still around and kicking and losing ever more money, while the revamped Live platform has yet to gain any traction and Microsoft is continually seeing search share losses. Microsoft even tried to lure searchers by offering them points in exchange for prizes when they did searches and even included games inside MSN Messenger that forced users to search for answers to questions. Sorry Softie, but that's not gonna win over the advertisers and not gonna get people to give up on Google altogether.

Yahoo's newest feature, billed as a Search "Innovation", while positive for the languishing company, signals just how far behind the company is on the technology spectrum. Yahoo was once the poster child for the future of the Internet and these days it seemingly can't catch a break as revenue growth is slowing, share prices are slipping and it loses portions of market share to Google every quarter. The new feature for Yahoo is "Search-Assist", which is a Search Suggestion/Completion tool that slides out when users type in a search keyword. As a user starts typing into the search box a list of common or relevant search terms comes up. Pretty cool huh! It is beneficial but looking behind the scenes I think tells a different story. Let's step back and see just what this says about Yahoo's tactics.

I think it showcases a desperation on Yahoo's part that it simply doesn't have the back end grunt to truly become a personalized search power house. A Power House that Google is slowing but surely building as it releases tools such as Web History, iGoogle and Personalized Search. All those quarters of increasing Capital Expenditures that analysts were frightened about are proving well worth their weight in gold as Google is able to completely change the search game again and again while its competitors struggle to keep up. Yahoo's search box suggestions come off as simply common or popular search terms, while all well and good, that's actually a step sideways and not forwards in the technological sense.

As the Internet expands and the plethora of information becomes exceedingly complex only YOU can determine exactly what YOU'RE looking for, not everybody else. Google's got you covered. A recent post on Google's official blog states (Link) that Yes its concerned about the huge privacy issues and its doing all it can but it also is working tremendously to tailor the Internet to each user.

"search algorithms that are designed to take your personal preferences into account, including the things you search for and the sites you visit, have better odds of delivering useful results for you. So if you’ve been checking out sites about the Louvre and you search for 'Paris', you’re more likely to get results about the French capital than the celebrity heiress" Additionally Google goes on to showcase that a search for Football in Chicago is completely different than a search for Football in London, England.

Google is taking localized and personalized search into realms that its competitors can only dream of getting to. This is all due to that massive technology spending to build out an infrastructure of computing that can handle incredible complexity when it comes to something that should be as simple as search. That is why Google gets a majority of search traffic, has higher click-through rates for its tailored advertisements, continues to grow rapidly and demands a market premium via a lofty valuation.

Yahoo, Microsoft and Ask right now are simply out of their league when it comes to search innovations. Google has the brains, with its thousands of dedicated creative employees, it has the brawn, with its incredible breadth of technology infrastructure, and it has bank roll to keep innovating in ever expanding new areas of not only Search Technology but all aspects of our daily Internet lives.

Disclosure: Author is long GOOG

Markets start October with a Bang as Dow hits All Time High

The rally continues in the wake of the Fed Rate Cut last month and stocks extended gains as the calendar changed from September to October. The Dow hit an all time intra-day high of 14,115 points as the index gained over 190 points. The Nasdaq followed suit with an almost 40 point gain and the S&P held up a 20 point gain. Canadian markets ended with about half the gains of its US counterparts as investors bought stocks across the board bidding the TSX up 100 points. The advance was broad and spanned every sector. Volume was also much heavier than the week prior as investors on the sidelines during the end of the quarter jumped back into the markets to fuel the rally.

Citigroup (C) drifted off its highs late but was up over 3% in the afternoon as it provided an optimistic outlook for the remainder of the year. The financial heavyweight announced that profit fell 60% due to loses in credit and mortgage securities totalled almost $6Billion. Guess the big bank guys weren't as smart of those Goldman Sachs (GS) traders who shorted such monstrous amounts of mortgage investments to cover up and make up hefty losses. Nonetheless investors were pleased as Citigroup told the markets they expect a calendar 4th quarter that would return things to the norm. Goldman gained another 3% to close at $223.

Nokia (NOK) also made headlines, and started the day well down, as it announced the purchase of Navteq (NVT), the navigation software company, for over $8Billion. Nokia shook off the early heavy drop before the market opened and managed to close the day in the green and even hit a 52-week high above $38/share. Nokia hopes to leverage Navteq's expertise in maps and navigation into its future lineup of mobile phones. The loser here apparently was Garmin (GRMN) as its shares fell 10% on investor speculation that it lost the bid for Navteq's service and now faces stiffer competition from Nokia.

New highs were aplenty in Tech stocks as Ebay (EBAY), Apple (AAPL), IBM (IBM), Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) and Google (GOOG) all hit new marks, while Research In Motion (RIMM) and Amazon (AMZN) came oh so close. Google continued its sharp rise adding $15 and crossing the $580/share price mark for the first time in its young public history. As major techs get set to report earnings in the coming weeks it'll be increasing difficult to judge which of those companies are too inflated for their own growth prospects. But now, while the rally is in full swing, investors are coming back into play and buying Technology ahead of earnings and the seasonally strong holiday quarter.

Disclosure: Author is long AAPL, GOOG, GS, C

3rd Calendar Quarter Ends, Earnings Season Begins

As a tumultuous 3rd Calendar quarter comes to a close, market volatility grabbed most of the trading headlines as the markets felt the effects of the credit crisis and a Fed induced Rate Cut Rally.

What the end of the quarter brings is wave after wave of Corporate Earnings. The markets have seen earnings from the Financials coming over the last couple of weeks, highlighted by Goldman Sachs (GS) tremendous expectations beat. The first week of October is highlighted by a couple gadget/phone makers as Palm (PALM) reports Monday and Research In Motion (RIMM) reports Thursday. The two smart phone competitors have been going in opposite directions and Palm hopes its latest cheap device can put a dent in the momentum that's been grabbed by the BlackBerry and Apple's (AAPL) iPhone.

Overall the upcoming earnings week is fairly calm as a storm of earnings will come in the last three weeks of October.

Markets Rise Modestly Thursday on Subdued Volume while China Stocks Soar

North American market were higher across the board Thursday as Investors were buying cautiously towards the end of the quarter. Many however sat on the sidelines as trading volume was lower across the board than in previous weeks. The Dow, Nasdaq and S&P all saw gains today of about .3%. In Canadian Markets the TSX was up almost triple digits which translated to about .7% in the green.

Google (GOOG) went in front of the Government today to defend its decision to buy DoubleClick. A group of challengers led by Microsoft (MSFT) had complained that this deal would give Google too much power over Internet Advertising. Google's dominance in search ads, coupled with DoubleClick's reporting and distribution services would give Google too much control according to Microsoft. Yes, I understand the irony of Microsoft complaining about Anti-Trust issues hot on the heels of its appeal loss in Europe for the very same infractions. Talk about the Pot calling the Kettle black! Google seems confident enough that the deal would be allowed to go through as it points out that Microsoft had also been in the bidding for DoubleClick and lost, having to settle for competitor aQuantive.

In the airline sector a large order was placed by British Airways (BAIRY). The company leveraged heavy competition between Boeing (BA) and Airbus and took orders from both airplane makers. The Airline placed an order for 12 Airbus A380 planes and 24 Boeing 787s with an option to buy even more planes should needs arise. British Airways climbed almost 5% on the news while Boeing was only slightly higher.

The other continuing big stock growth story is China. Many Chinese based companies have done extremely well this week and the run was capped off today with even more substantial gains. China Eastern Airlines (CEA) was up 15%, China Telecom (CHA) was up 15% and 18% on the week and China BAK Battery (CBAK) was up 19% and has doubled in the last 5 days. Another Chinese mobile/Internet play KongZhong (KONG) was really flying today as the stock jumped 72% rebounding from year-lows recently.

While its tempting to jump in and try to ride more momentum here, caution is the name of the game. With these type of gains an cool, calm and collected investor would sit back and see whether the now inflated prices can be sustained going forward to a quick trade. While I would particularly be cautious about the Airline industry, China Telecom is a great play on the expanding mobile world and KongZhong was beaten down from the $10s to the high $3s before rebounding now to $8.50 on inklings of hope and raised estimates. Due to government control and very strict laws the Chinese business world is one not fully understood by a majority of casual investors and as such I don't recommend jumping in blind hoping to catch a wave.

Disclosure: Author is long GOOG and holds no position in any other companies mentioned