Asian casino stocks, along with the gaming-sector-related exchange traded fund, are rebounding as traders go bottom-fishing after the graft-induced sell-off in Hong Kong.
The Market Vectors Gaming ETF (NYSEArca: BJK) was up 1.1% Monday and 1.5% higher over the past month after declining 21.3% over the past year. [Two-Deck Shoe: Dueling Views on the Gambling ETF]
While the Hang Seng was little changed Monday, Wynn Macau rose 4.8%, its strongest gain in almost a month, while Sands China added 3.3 and Galaxy Entertainment was up 3.1%, Bloomberg reports.
BJK includes Wynn Macau 2.0%, Sands China 7.0% and Galaxy Entertainment 8.7%.
“Investors are really just focused on trying to find stabilization or a bottoming,” Vitaly Umansky, an analyst at Sanford Bernstein, said in the Bloomberg artlce. “As long as things aren’t deteriorating, things seemed to be fairly consistent, that’s probably a decent sign from an investor’s perspective.”
The Macau’s casino industry has suffered a huge blow to VIP gaming after President Xi Jingping enacted a campaign on widespread corruption, which included thousands of officials and executives at state-owned enterprises. [Macau Illegal Transaction Crackdown Puts Gaming ETF in the Red]
Consequently, gross gaming revenue in Macau has plunged 39% to 19.2 billion patacas, or $2.4 billion, last month. Macau also experienced a 17.6% decline in Chinese visitors in March.
The visitor slump “may reflect slower economic growth in mainland China, and comes as complaints rise in Macau about Chinese tourists over-running the city,” Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Tim Craighead said in the article.
Wynn Resorts (NYSE: WYNN) has already cut dividends in response to the weakness, pointing to uncertainty in the Chinese city as the “plaguing word of the day.” WYNN makes up 6.3% of BJK’s portfolio.
However, the city is trying to rebuild its market with shops, restaurants, entertainment shows and other non-gaming attractions to bring in more middle-class tourism. For instance, Galaxy Macau is planning a Broadway.
Market Vectors Gaming ETF
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Max Chen contributed to this article.