WYNN stock

Anybody else thinking of pulling the trigger? Seems like every time it has a pullback it rebounds nicely and over the next few years with the new Wynn Palace and then Boston revenue coming on line it seems like a pretty good place to park some money.

 

Yes and for the reasons you say. I bought Wynn in October of 2015.

Macau is troubled short term but long term there are ALOT of people within a 4 hour flight radius.

Boston Harbor is icing on the cake. I'm not going to rattle off the numbers the way I saw it but even without that project going forward I'd still be buying Wynn.

 

We bought Wynn a week after the IPO and it's been good. Mr. Wynn has always made money for his partners and shareholders.

I don't pay much attention to investment advisors or market analysts, (as always, an index fund or monkey throwing a dart will outperform them) so I don't know what they say, but I can't imagine that recommendations would not be a 'buy.'

I think people should invest in companies they know and products they use-most people are smarter than they think and smarter than so-called professional managers and advisors. Usually, if you shop at Sam's, own a Mac, iPhone or iPad, drink Coca Cola, wipe your nose with a Kleenex, visit Las Vegas, etc., you'd have done well over the long term if you'd bought in to those companies. 2008 was a disaster, but over the long term Mr. Wynn has done just fine for his shareholders.

The risk I perceive is if, God forbid please, something untoward were to happen to Mr. Wynn. Savants like Mr. Wynn are once in a generation exceptions (for instance, Tim Cook is no Steve Jobs) and you just don't know what market perceptions and real performance would be without him. I wish Mr. Wynn a very, very long and happy life. I think Mr. Wynn has assembled the best management team in the gaming industry, but still Mr. Wynn, and my design idol Mr. Thomas, have done things no one else has.

For me it's a 'hold', and I got stung having too big a percentage bet on Las Vegas during the crash (so diversification is always good), but, taking your question very seriously, yes, I think Wynn is a good buy.

Wouldn't it make you happy when you pay your bill or slide a hundred into a video poker machine that you're contributing to your investment performance? Makes me smile.

 

JJ - do you think some of those lucrative "one time" dividends he's paid in the past were specific to the Hay Day's of Macau?

As a side note,;if you've owned since the IPO, that took some **** to hang on in the downturn of 2008/9. Warren Buffet is so right on...."buy when everyone else is fearful and be fearful when everyone else is buying"

As long as your buying basically good companies that is.....

I have to say though, at the height of that downturn, a lot of experts thought we could be put into a depression and something like that really could have hurt casino stocks for a long time.

 

By the time we figured out we were well and truly f'd in the downturn, it didn't make sense to panic and bail. We actually doubled down and bought more MGM at $4 when everyone doubted Jim Murren and MGM was right on the edge. Over time the only loss we've ever taken in Las Vegas has been a small investment in Harrah's (and my stupid penchant for wandering over to play a few minutes of Let it Ride or Three Card Poker when I KNOW I shouldn't-degenerate addict I am).

We're old enough to be significantly reducing our common stock percentage of retirement funds, but our experience has been good enough to still take some of those risks.

No, I don't think it will ever be quite the same for Las Vegas as it was in 2007, but long term, ok. Probably a better gamble than me splitting a pair of eights. Jeez. No, I do NOT like betting on what the Chinese government might do next, but the guys betting Macau are betting their companies on it, so I'll take their word for it for now.

When you mention "experts" I just roll my eyes. By education and background I'd probably be considered an expert I think and I don't know puckey. Most all of my school buddies who went to Wall Street or a variant in the investment industry know that index funds did better than they did, except, of course, for the investment bankers, who almost always win in a completely rigged system.

If I thought the gaming industry was a decent investment area (and I do), the expert I'd bet on would be Mr. Wynn.

 

Agreed... The only unknown that slightly concerns me is his age. If he were to have a sudden illness or God forbid pass on suddenly, I don't have the confidence that anyone left would continue to work the Wynn magic....unless maybe his ex-wife came back? I know she's off the board but who knows what the line up is if he were to pass.

 

This is an excellent point.

I think that Wynn, like Apple with Jobs, will have some amount of runway after Steve Wynn departs. Apple has about doubled in market cap since Steve Jobs died but you are spot on that the lack of his vision is going to be a problem for Apple long term.

For Apple, their length of runway was determined by the iPhone product which still had room for growth when Jobs died. The problem now is that they've got no follow up product on the horizon which appears to have the same sales potential.

For Wynn, their runway is going to be defined by Wynn Palace and Wynn Boston Harbor. Those projects could carry the company's growth for the next 5+ years with or without Steve Wynn but at some point they'll plateau without him unless they get lucky with his successor.

For that reason, I feel good about owning Wynn stock right now and then we will have to reassess once both Wynn Palace and Wynn Boston Harbor have reached their potential.

 

The only concern I have against a large preponderance of demographic positives is how well the Wynn brand and luxury will transport to New England. Everyone assumed that Beau Rivage would wow them and revolutionize Gulf Coast gaming and hospitality. It didn't and depressed the Mirage Resorts stock enough to make them a takeover or acquisition target. Beau Rivage never did break through the regional gaming culture, in part because it was too hard to get to from Texas (Texans spend billions on gaming in Oklahoma, Louisiana and New Mexico because the fools in Austin don't recognize potential tax revenue and jobs when they're sitting on the table in front of them). I think Boston is different and obviously Macau is a wildly whole different market. I'm thinking the Chinese as a culture probably like to gamble even more than I do and that Mr. Wynn has always been right when he's observed that people will always pay to be at the best place in town.

Like I said, I don't know much, but if I'm betting on an expert, it will be Mr. Wynn.

Wasn't it Yogi Berra who said "You can learn a lot just by watching."? I've watched Mr. Wynn since the Golden Nugget. I'm a believer.

 

Off topic-As for Apple, I'm almost out now, losing some from market highs but fabulously ahead overall. I am not a Tim Cook believer and "innovation" and "Apple" no longer go together in my mind. I think Apple will never just go away, but I have no faith in the vision of Apple's existing management.

And, I think that Mr. Wynn has better people than were left at Apple. Cook was Apple's politically correct beginning of Apple just being an overpriced, overvalued company with inferior products. I don't think Wynn will be like that. Of course, my opinion is completely worthless, so it costs nothing to share.

 

Over the past 10 years, you would have been better off investing in a S&P 500 fund, so no thanks.

Unless there's some convincing reason to think the stock will explode in the near future, I see no reason to invest in it at the moment.

 

You can actually take advantage of gambling variance to trade WYNN.

For 1Q 2012 he reported bad earns, on the conf call he said it was due to bad hold on baccarat - was 18% when it should have been ~25%. It sold off anyway, and I jumped on it around $95. Sold 14 months later in the mid 150's (way too early, it reached ~$225 before the gov't crackdown on junkets).

But the $95 it was at then isn't the same as the $95 it's at now, cause of said crackdown.

That's how I would play WYNN - look for an advantage play - some Q where he takes a one-time beating because of bacc or something else. I'd want to get it at an extreme, which it's not at now.

And the poster who was asking about the special div - the year-end I held it, the special div was around $4 (which is actually a return of capital, so it reduces your cost basis). I think the regular div was around $4 a year at the time also.

You'll also notice that when Wynn got to an extreme down near $50 it's bounce coincided with getting to a 4% yield. Right now the yield's only 2% and I'm not sure I'd expecting a special div - did they pay one at all the last couple years?

 

Agreed as a general proposition. Our investments in Wynn have significantly outperformed market averages starting with Mirage Resorts. Buying any common stock now should probably only be done if you are both diversified and have some nice mutual and index funds. I certainly don't think an average investor with any less than $1million put away should be messing with common stocks, and probably not even then. It is like gambling-sometimes you beat the house for the short term, but usually not. Maybe better to buy an index fund or a monkey with a dart board?

My advice is no better than the monkey's, by the way.

 

A fairly smart monkey told me once, "save a year's worth of cash, put the max in your 401k, have a Keogh, buy index funds, save 10% of your income, don't borrow money and don't gamble." I did fairly well following the monkey's advice, except for the gambling part.

 

I'm not sure if that's an old joke or what, but I remember reading pretty much that exact same statement in one of Scott Adams' first books in the 90's (in the context of him wanting to write an investment book, but realizing everything he recommends could be boiled down to one sentence), and it still holds true today.

When I was just starting out my working career I invested in individual stocks, but pretty quickly realized that while some of mine went up, some went down, and some stayed about the same, the markets on the whole always tend to trend up over the long term, and I wasn't beating the indices. Since then I've pretty much just invested in the Vanguard S&P 500 Index fund. It's about as boring an investment as one can possibly make, and it won't make anyone rich quick, but it's averaged 8% yearly returns in the past ten years with about a 2% dividend (and a negligible 0.05% yearly fee), and I'm frankly fine with that.

 

Here is an article from a former casino executive and consultant, he is a big fan of Wynn.
http://seekingalpha.com/article/3990684-tunnel-vision-wynn-flawed-analysis

 

I own it. I'm personally waiting for another downturn to buy more. I'm in it for close to the IPO price. I had opportunity at the IPO, but waited to see how it performed before I bought.

My concern is an overall downturn in hte economy. Also, I prefer not to buy equity before an election.

 

WYNN keeps getting rejected at $100, even as the S&P finally broke out. Where it's at now, you can look at as either minor range support or no man's land right in the middle of the $75 - $100 range since mid-February. If it can hang in above $87-ish while the rest of the market rolls over in Sept, that would be good. Doesn't feel like a great entry point right now though. Feels like people are all too happy to sell at $100 until their results show growth picking up.

If there's a really strong jobs number next week, the mkt might throw a little knee-jerk tantrum and you'll get to see what WYNN does then.

 

http://finance.yahoo.com/m/6d81003b-0c24-34e6-85ab-0490b599ef70/ss_macau-gaming-returns-to.html

Macau surprises with first YOY increase since 2014.

 

Yowza!

 

Today could be the day (probably morning) to buy some Wynn....