Since I first wrote about gaming and hospitality company Wynn Resorts (WYNN) three and a half years ago the stock performance has been nothing short of an intense roller coaster. For a large cap company with a relatively simple business, you are unlikely to see more volatility in the equity markets. Such wide gyrations are great for investors, especially those willing to be contrarian and buy when things look the bleakest, but the exercise can admittedly become tiring while also predictable.
Fast forward from May 2015 to today and I am still a rider on this roller coaster. Although I bought the stock at low prices and sold much of it at high prices, I failed to sell everything near the top and we are now stuck in a down cycle for the shares, despite the fact that the company is doing just fine.
Below is a five-year chart of Wynn Resorts shares that shows just how dizzying the ride has been:
I was buying the stock in 2015 after the prodigious collapse from the 2014 highs and began trimming positions in late 2017 and well into 2018, but the long-term outlook (still very bright in my view) caused me to hold onto to a smaller position even as the stock reached the $200 level. And now we are left with an interesting question; what to do now?
Given the stock chart above, you would probably guess that Wynn’s business is in trouble, but you would be wrong. In fact, company EBITDA this year is likely to come in right around their previous best two years ($1.68 billion in 2013 and $1.61 billion in 2017) and could even reach $1.7 billion, a new company record. As is usually the case, the financial markets extrapolate current results and value the business based on those near-term figures, ignoring both longer term historical track records and the future outlook a year or two down the road.
That trend is playing out now, as Wynn’s business has gotten soft in recent months and is unlikely to bounce back quickly in the near term. Never mind that their Boston property will open in June 2019 and offset weakness seen elsewhere in their property portfolio. Never mind that the company is in the process of designing new additions to their properties in both Las Vegas and Macau that will grow profits over time.