Macau reopens! How many times has gaming great Wynn Resorts (NASDAQ:WYNN) gone up on those happy words, only to have them retracted by further Chinese lockdowns? Well, add one more to the stack because that’s what’s happening with Wynn today. The good news is that this time, it may just stick.
Wynn’s gaming operations in Macau have long been a major part of the company’s bottom line. Back in 2020, Wynn Resorts pulled in around 40% of its casino revenues from gaming with VIPs. Most telling of all, around 90% of its casino revenues came from Macau. With Macau forcibly out of circulation due to COVID-19 restrictions and the Zero-COVID policy that followed, it meant bad news for Wynn and its contemporaries in the field.
Now that most COVID-19 restrictions are now relegated to the status of “bad memories”–and even Zero-COVID is on the skids in China–Macau coming back online may, at last, mean something. In fact, it already does mean something to analysts.
Wells Fargo, via analyst Daniel Politzer, placed Wynn on its “Tactical Ideas” list for the first quarter of 2023. Further, they also upgraded their ranking to “overweight.” The combination of reopening, the return of the VIP gamer, smaller scale offerings, and more were big for Wynn.
Wall Street, however, is of two minds on the matter. Analyst consensus calls Wynn a Moderate Buy right now, with an equal number of Buy and Hold ratings. Wynn’s average price target of $90.38 per share gives the stock an upside potential of 6.64%.
