Las Vegas stock investments

I was wondering whether there was any thread on this site that actively discussed any Las Vegas stocks (LVS, WYNN, BYD, VICI, RRR, etc.)?

I am always surprised that many people frequent the casinos in Las Vegas without considering investing in the casinos where our "donations" are made.

That is a good point.  

I buy burgers at McDonald's, but don't own any of their stock. I buy gas at Chevron, but I'm not a stockholder. I bank at Black Bandit Bank, but I've never invested in them.

How is that any different?

I suppose you could say to yourself that if you own stock in the big fat slobbering corporation that owns the casino where you're losing your shorts, you're getting back some tiny fraction of those losses. But we're literally talking less than one cent in a million dollars.

Now, if you do want to mine data of gaming stocks, Morningstar.com has a lot of free info, and you can organize it by sector.

It does make sense. Investors who are "on the ground" and see a company's performance up close can sometimes inform investment decisions.

I doubt that anyone just walking around a casino could get any real or accurate sense of how the company that runs it is doing.

Like with pretty much every other publicly traded corporation out there, the public sees only the tip of the tip of the tip of the iceberg. There could be dry rot in the business structure, unpaid/undisclosed liabilities, a coming event, foreseen or unforeseen, which will drastically affect the company's profitability, etc. etc.--all of which is and will always be invisible to Joe Investor.

The bottom line is that unless you happen to have inside information about a company, an informed decision is impossible. Buying stocks is just another form of gambling. That includes buying gambling stocks.

One of Wall Street's greatest investors is a man named Peter Lynch who wrote an amazing, bestselling book called "One Up on Wall Street".     Its a very easy read for novice investors and the central theme is very simple.....everyday working  people have insight into business that goes beyond what Wall Street analysts can find in their research.

John Q Public can go into the new big chain store that just popped up  in his neighborhood and make a note...what are the crowds like?   What is the quality of the product?  What are his neighbors saying about it?  Anecodtal information like that led him to buy Dunkin Donuts and make 100X his money.     Thats one example of many in his book.

"Buying what you know" has since become a pillar of investment strategy.       

When casino stock prices crashed during the Obama years we bought MGM around 5 dollars and sold around 11 dollars which was our target.  Too bad we didn't hold it awhile longer.  

I agree with MP and disagree with Kevin on this.  And I have a weird feeling MP has more $ in stocks than Kevin does.  

Kevin, you're told us that Vegas casinos make obscene amounts of money, yet you don't invest?  That seems silly.

Profits don't necessarily translate to stock prices. It depends on where the money goes. For instance, Station Casinos made, as you would put it, "obscene amounts of money" in the period 2005-2015. They pissed it all away investing in casino projects both in and far from Vegas, none of which panned out. Their stock fell like a rock, even though they were still clearing a profit.

And then, of course, there was the Venetian, most of which the profits went to the Trump campaigns (and still may).