With a helping hand from Macau, the world’s largest gambling hub, the VanEck Vectors Gaming ETF (NYSEArca: BJK) is up more than 19% this year and some analysts see more upside coming for gaming stocks.
Las Vegas Sands (NYSE: LVS) and Wynn Resorts (NASDAQ: WYNN) are dominant names in Las Vegas but the companies, two marquee holdings in BJK, are also big players in Macau, levering each to Chinese gambling trends.
“Casino stocks surged Thursday after better-than-expected revenue numbers out of Macau, a special administrative region of China that’s become a gambling mecca. And some strategists say it isn’t time for investors to cash in their chips just yet,” reports CNBC. “Las Vegas Sands is now up 16 percent year to date, MGM Resorts has risen 12 percent and Wynn Resorts has climbed 54 percent. In fact, Wynn is the third-best-performing stock in the S&P 500 this year. On Thursday, Las Vegas Sands saw its biggest rise since the first day of September.”