April GGR finished up 11% owing to a big final 3 days. The placeholder strikes again.
As we wrote about in our Tuesday note, “WE’VE BEEN PLACEHOLDERED”, the last few days of April were likely to be volatile yet strong. While the fundamentals remain solid, the strength in the numbers the past 3 days was probably due in part to an understatement of the prior week’s revenues. That week sure looked like a “placeholder” week to us as reported table revenues totaled the recurring sum of exactly HK$5,425 million.
Daily table revenues for Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday of this week averaged an estimated $HK1,210 million, up 34% from the disappointing prior “placeholder” week. We saw this phenomenon occur with the big finish to March and the light last few days of January in addition to numerous other examples from prior years.
So what is the conclusion? Based on sequential trends, our math suggested April should’ve been up 13-14% yet growth fell a little short at 11%. However, we suspect a low hold percentage early in the month may have caused the slight shortfall. All in all, it’s business as usual in Macau despite all the consternation. We’re still expecting a big May that should keep the newfound positive momentum (since Tuesday) going on these stocks. WYNN continues to look the best to us over the near term.