Category Archives: earnings conference calls

2Q14 results for Wynn Resorts (WYNN) and Wynn Macau (HK: 1128)

July 30, 2014 By in Casinos, earnings conference calls, Entertainment, Hong Kong, Industry Analysis, Japanese development, Macau, Stock ideas Tags: , , , , , Leave a comment

it’s been same old, same old for the big casino operators…

I haven’t written about WYNN and its subsidiary Wynn Macau (1128) for a while.  That’s mostly because I perceive the company to be in a holding pattern.  It has two casino operations:  Las Vegas and Macau, the latter through 72%-owned Wynn Resorts.

–In Las Vegas, all the major casino resort operators, WYNN included, upped their operating leverage by opening big new casino and hotel capacity in 2007-08, just as the recession was unfolding.  Demand dropped through the floor.    Profits disappeared faster.  Results since have been consistently weak as the casinos wait for demand to pick up and/or for weaker entries to close up shop.

–In the Macau market, which is now many times the size of Las Vegas, 1128 has been capacity constrained for some time.  Its next expansion, the Wynn Palace, isn’t slated to open until early 2016.

…until now

Las Vegas

For WYNN, the near-term story is Las Vegas.  And the change is for the better.  Room revenues in 2Q14 were up by 7.3% year-on-year in the quarter.  Average room rates rose to $283, up from $268 in 2Q13.  Occupancy increased from 88.4% from 86.9%.  To my mind, the room rate rise is a particularly important indicator of increasing demand.

In addition, the amount bet at WYNN’s Las Vegas tables was up by almost 15%, year-on-year.  The company’s win percentage was an unusually high 27.4%. vs.  the company’s expected range of 21% – 24%.  In all likelihood, the “extra” win from this quarter will be offset by sub-par “luck” in coming periods.  But, again, the more interesting number is the sharp jump in table games betting.

Slot machines were flat.

Management said on the earnings conference call that the 2Q strength was continuing into 3Q.

Macau

In Macau, the individual pluses and minuses for 1128 may be a little different, but the near-term profit profile–flattish–remains the same.

Overall market growth in Macau has slowed as an economic lull in China and Beijing’s anti-corruption campaign have tempered VIP’s  enthusiasm for high-stakes gambling.  This has been offset by a sharp jump in visits by the mass affluent, who–unlike their high-roller counterparts–are more concerned with being entertained than at winning a lot at baccarat.  They also want to eat, shop and go to shows.  So from the casinos’ point of view, they’re great customers.

While it waits for the new capacity the Wynn Palace will bring, 1128 is refurbishing its existing hotel and casino spaces.  It’s also raising salaries considerably, both to reinforce its reputation for superior service and to retain staff.  While these actions may make profits a bit weaker than they would be otherwise, it makes sense to use the current lull to set the stage for stronger growth in a year or two.

my take

WYNN has a market cap of $22 billion.  Its stake in 1128 is worth $16 billion, meaning that Wall Street is valuing the Wynn name, Las Vegas operations, royalties from Macau and the potential of future casino development in, say, Japan, at $6 billion.  That’s roughly 25x earnings.

WYNN shares yield 2.3%, 1128 about double that.

Last year, I sold the 1128 I had held since just after the IPO, partly because my casino holdings had become too large a part of my portfolio, partly in anticipation of the current fallow time.  I’m beginning to think about buying it back.  But I’d prefer to do so in the mid- to high-HK$20s.  Rightly or wrongly, I think I have time before the market begins to discount the opening of the Wynn Palace–with a presumed strong profit upsurge–in 2016.

I bought a lot of the WYNN I hold during the market collapse in early 2009.  I may be influenced by the tax I’d pay if I sold (I hope not, because this is virtually always a bad way to think), but I’m content to collect the dividend while I wait for Las Vegas to recover and the Wynn Palace to open.  To me it sounds as if the first may already be happening, which would be good news for WYNN shares.

What would I do if I owned nothing in this sector?

The least risky thing to do would be to buy a small amount of either WYNN or LVS and try to add on weakness.  LVS has the better near-term profit profile; WYNN has the better management, in my view.  Their valuations are similar, although their business models are a bit different.  LVS runs convention hotels; WYNN focuses on the high-roller niche.  (I own both.)

The most attractive firm I see at the moment is Galaxy Entertainment.  It’s a Macau-only operator and trades either in Hong Kong, or on the pink sheets–so it’s riskier than the other two.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Amazon’s no-show profits

July 29, 2014 By in Amazon, Current Market Thoughts, earnings conference calls, Industry Analysis, internet, Stock ideas Tags: , , , , , , 2 Comments

Amazon’s 2Q14 results

When Amazon (AMZN) reported 2Q14 results last Thursday, not only did the company post a bigger operating loss than anticipated but it said that the 3Q14 red ink would dwarf the 2Q14 actuals.

The news came as a surprise  …and not one that Wall Street took favorably.  The stock dropped 11% in Friday trading.

At the same time, the news media were filled with red-faced portfolio managers and analysts complaining that Jeff Bezos should be more sensitive to their need for more robust profits, which–allegedly–would make the stock go up.

To me, this is a case of being careful what you wish for.

Let’s do some back of the envelope calculations to see why…

is AMZN’s valuation reasonable?

The analyst consensus is that AMZN will earn around $2 a share in 2015.  That’s a forward PE of 160x.  How could anyone pay that price to own a share of any company?  For someone who holds AMZN, he must be thinking something like this:

–the company consists of a US business that makes a considerable profit and a foreign one that is flirting with breakeven.  If we assume that foreign operations can equal the US in size and profits at some point, then that $2 a share will sooner or later become $4 a share at some point.  On this basis, the multiple is “only” 80x.

–the company spends a lot of money on computer software.  In a very real sense, this is capital spending.  That is to say, as is the case with any capital asset, the expenditure on software should arguably be registered on the balance sheet and written off bit by bit against revenue over the lifetime of the programs.  Because of past accounting abuses, however, programming costs are recognized as expenses immediately, even though the programs may last a long time.  This depresses current income.

AMZN also writes off startup expenses for new ventures right away. This is a conservative approach, but it also depresses current income.

To pluck a figure out of the air, if AMZN were less conservative and if it could treat software costs as capital items, $4 would be $8–and the future PE multiple is a “mere” 40x.  That’s too rich for my blood, but it’s not absolutely crazy, provided AMZN continues to grow.

what will likely happen if/when AMZN’s profits start to surge

What would it mean if AMZN began to show large amounts of current income?

The most likely scenario–and the one pms and analysts are calling for–would be that the company is no longer incurring software creation expense and  hefty startup costs for new ventures.

…in other words, it would imply that AMZN had run out of growth opportunities!  Surging profits imply AMZN is going ex-growth.

In my experience, there are few things worse, in stock market terms, than holding a growth stock that has suddenly gone ex growth.

In my judgment, a +30% increase in earnings by AMZN would be accompanied by a gigantic price earnings multiple contraction.  A halving of the PE would be my best guess.  If that’s anywhere near correct, the end result would be a loss of a third of AMZN’s market value.

As I said above, be careful what you wish for.  It also strikes me that the Wall Street complainers have no clue about the kind of stock they’re dealing with.

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earnings calls: Apple (AAPL) vs. Microsoft (MSFT)

July 23, 2014 By in cloud services, earnings conference calls, internet, software, Stock ideas, Technology, Video games, Wireless Tags: , , , Leave a comment

Last night after the market close, AAPL reported earnings per share that beat the consensus of Wall Street analysts–and the stock went down in the after-market.  MSFT, in contrast, reported results that fell short of analysts’ estimates–and the stock went up!

What’s going on?

AAPL gave next-quarter guidance that fell below Wall Street’s projection–but it always does this, so that’s not the reason.  MSFT’s income statement looks better after factoring out the large operating loss generated by Nokia, but I don’t think that’s the reason for the market’s positive response, either.  After all, if you wanted to (I didn’t), you could have gotten a reasonable guess at how much Nokia would subtract from the MSFT total from Nokia’s recent results as a stand-alone company.

I think the market’s response is much more a a conceptual response.

Tim Cook has made it clear that AAPL is a manufacturer of high-end mobile consumer technology.  There’s no “next big thing” on the horizon, however, with only a periodic refresh of the company’s smartphone line due any time soon.  If reports from suppliers are accurate, new offerings will include a phone with a large, Samsung Galaxy-matching screen size, and a(n even larger) tablet/phone.  For Jobs-ites, this departure from Steve’s view that phones should be small enough to operate with one hand may be earth-shaking.  But for the rest of the world, this is only catching up to what Samsung already has on the market.  So a ho-hum Wall Street response is appropriate.

For MSFT, on the other hand, the news is relatively better.  The company seems to have a focus for the first time in a long while.  The fact that Nokia is putting up operating losses at a near-$3 billion annual rate seems to me to justify the downsizing MSFT has recently announced.  The only surprise is that this wasn’t started sooner.

Leaving the X-Box content creation business is probably more symbolic than anything else, but it removes a potential distraction–especially given the continual mess the company has typically made of its game software development efforts.

One, admittedly small, figure what caught my eye was that MSFT has added another 1,000,000 individual/small business users to its Office 365 rolls during the June quarter.  I think this just shows the power of the cloud–easier administration, much lower cost-of-goods expense, and hugely better protection against counterfeiting.

For MSFT, then, the earnings were nice, but the fact that the company’s board is allowing significant changes is nicer.  True, the message may turn out only to be that the company will try harder not to shoot itself in the foot again, but even that’s an uptick.  Hence the positive market response.  Absence of missteps won’t be good enough for long, but it’s ok for now.

a closer look at Intel’s 2Q14

July 18, 2014 By in cloud services, earnings conference calls, internet, semiconductor manufacturing, software, Stock ideas, Technology Tags: , , , , , Leave a comment

2Q14 results

After the close of Tuesday, Intel (INTC) reported a strong 2Q14.   Revenue came in slightly higher than the company’s upwardly revised guidance from last month.  Earnings per share were $.55 vs. Wall Street analysts’ expectations of $.52 (expectations which were revised upward when INTC announced in mid-June that business was looking up).

INTC also revised up its full-year revenue guidance from basically flat year-on-year to +5% growth.  It said that its server business ($3.5 billion of the company’s $13.8 billion total during the quarter) continues to boom, with both unit volumes and unit prices rising.  That’s no surprise.  In addition, however, the PC business ($8.7 billion in 2Q14 sales) appears to have bottomed and to be bouncing back a bit.

The PC development has two aspects.  Corporate customers, who make up about 40% of the PC total, are buying again.  The simplest explanation for this is that their existing laptops and desktops have just gotten too old.  Buying may also be spurred by the fact the Microsoft is ending support for Windows XP, that corporations don’t regard tablets as a viable substitute for laptops, or simply that firms are flush with cash.  In any event, corporates are buying, and will easily continue to do so in increasing amounts into next year.

Consumers, 60% of the total PC market, may also be showing signs of life–although this is more OEM and distributor body language than actual orders.

Remember, too, that INTC’s sales are not to end users.  So it stands to benefit not only from increased final sales but also by manufacturer and distributors purchases to built up bare-bones inventories.

operating leverage

INTC has substantial operating leverage, both from the capital-intensive nature of its manufacturing and its very large R&D and SG&A budgets.  As a result, small changes in revenue can make a disproportionately large impact on the bottom line (in fact, they’re almost pure profit).  At the moment, the revenue changes in INTC’s two main businesses, PCs and servers, are both positive.

tax rate

INTC is saying it  expects its tax rate to remain at 28% for the rest of the year, implying that the growth it is seeing is mostly coming from the developed world, where tax levies are relatively high.

lines of business

As is always the case in securities analysis, the line of business table is where the real work is done.  For INTC, I’ve duplicated the relevant 2Q14 lines below:

PC Client Group :    revs = $8.667 billion, op income = $3.734 billion

Data Center Group :   revenues = $3.709 billion, op income = $1.807 billion

Mobile and Communications Group : revenues = $51 million, op income = ($1.154 billion).

No, that’s not a mistake.  INTC’s tablet and smartphone chip business had revenues of $51 million for the quarter …and an operating loss of $1.2 billion.

INTC is earning operating income of $22 billion – $25 billion a year from its traditional businesses and using a chunk of that to fund the massive losses it is incurring in trying to break into the mobile computing business.

The M&C Group figures need some interpretation.  The revenue figures are net of marketing or other incentives INTC gives to buyers of its mobile chips; the operating loss includes R&D and other expenditures that arguably have an enduring value.

Nevertheless, the line of business table does convey the essence of the INTC story for shareholders wiling to pay $30+ for a share of stock.  INTC is, in effect, two companies:

–one is a mature microprocessor maker earning $2.50 or so a share and growing at maybe +10% a year

–the other is a startup currently bleeding red ink at a $4 billion annual rate.

my take

The fact that INTC is incurring large near-term losses on its M&C Group says two things to me:

–it doesn’t yet have a set of products customers are willing to actually pay for, and

–INTC believes M&C is crucial to its long-term success.

I might be persuaded to pay 15x earnings for the traditional business, if I thought it would have stable-to-rising earnings.  That would mean a target price in the high $30 range.  However, INTC’s actions imply that top management doesn’t believe the business is viable without M&C.  So maybe the right price for the traditional business would be $30.

That leaves the question of the status of M&C still up in the air, though.

On the other hand, if INTC can create a profitable mobile business, that would mean–to pluck numbers out of the air–total INTC near-term earnings could be $3 a share, with a higher growth rate.  Worth $45 a share?  …probably so.

My bottom line:  news of a cyclical upturn in the PC and server businesses probably supports INTC shares for the time being.  Eventual downside to the high $20s (?) if/as it becomes clear the mobile chip business has no hope.  Upside to $40+ on signs that INTC is narrowing its M&C operating losses.

I find it hard to assign probabilities to either outcome.  For the time being I’m content to remain a holder of the stock.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

my take on Apple (AAPL)

April 25, 2014 By in earnings conference calls, Stock ideas Tags: , , , , , Leave a comment

In a comment on yesterday’s post, my friend Bruce asked for my take on AAPL. That’s my subject today.

The stock looks cheap to me.  Investors have had two big worries, I think.  One has been lack of recent earnings growth.  The other is the perception that the post-Jobs management of AAPL is completely at sea, cowed by the memory of Jobs and therefore unable to make decisions– as well as completely uninterested in whether the stock goes up or down.

However,

–growth appears to be resuming.  Yes, modest growth, but Wall Street has understood for years that the heady days of the last decade are gone forever.

–AAPL has a stellar brand name and many rabid fans.  New products may re-energize them.

–the recent announcement of a 7-for-1 split offers the hope that management is more the simply caretaker of the Steve Jobs museum.

–in addition, conditions are right for investors to look at AAPL again.  I think 2014 is going to be a sideways year from here for the US stock market.  So a big, low-multiple, cash generative company where earnings growth is resuming and where management practices may be taking a turn for the better has a great chance to be an outperformer.  A 2.3% dividend yield doesn’t hurt, either.

To me, AAPL feels like the MSFT story, only in an earlier chapter.  MSFT has a stronger business.  But Tim Cook arguably has greater freedom to act, since he’s dealing only with the legend of Steve Jobs and not the physical presence of Steve Ballmer.  (Also, to give him credit, Cook has already fixed one of SJ’s mistaken pronouncements–that 10″ is the only tablet size anyone will/should want.  He appears to be in the process of fixing another, similar one–that the original iPhone screen size is the only choice anyone will want/need.)

Personally, I prefer MSFT.  But that may be because AAPL has historically been so uncommunicative that it’s hard to figure out what’s going on inside management’s heads.  In the strange way investors think, my attitude is arguably an investment plus for AAPL.  Better communication from AAPL would come as a positive surprise to Wall Street–and by itself result in a higher stock price.