Macao, Taipa, Macau - will this "city of dreams" bring you a 2010 Casino investment?

I thought I was going to write a buttoned up nice little article on investments to profit on the thriving Macau casino business's, but it turned out to be a more complicated discussion than I first thought. Pictured to the right is the Casino Lisboa which is owned by Sociedade De Turismo E Diversoes De Macau, (Symbol HK: SJM) which is owned by Stanley Ho(Hung-Sun) and his family and trades on the Hong Kong stock exchange. Stanley has had a monopoly franchise on the Macau casino business for 40 years before anyone else arrived. All the current folks have only been there 10 years. Taipa is the smaller of the two islands in Macau Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (formerly the Portuguese colony of Macau).Craig Stephen's "This Week in China" on Marketwatch.com is an excellent source on keeping you up on events in Macau. The Chinese government holds the ultimate trump card here, like many other things in the world, so add a dose of measured risk for that fact. Also there are Hong Kong exchange stocks and US exchange stocks with varying levels of exposure to this market and the associated risk. Wynn and Las Vagas Sands have stocks on both exchanges. If you want to see the Hong Kong stock exchange it is listed at http://www.hkex.com.hk/index.htm, I will limit my discussion to the US investment stocks. WYNN (Symbol WYNN) and Las Vegas Sands (Symbol LVS) which owns the largest hotel in Macau, The Venetian Hotel Resort, are safe ways to get exposure to the Macau action. Melco PBL Entertainment LTD ADS (Symbol MPEL) with the "City of Dreams" on the Cotai Strip should also be one to look at. All of us were cheering for Playboy (Symbol PLA) with their Macau location to be a boom for the company, but evidently they are playing with such a "short stack" at the poker table that Iconix Brand Group (Symbol ICON) that makes London Fog raincoats, walked away from a buyout opportunity of PLA last week. That must be one ugly Bunny balance sheet.
If you are in the market to just look at some good casino stocks and don't care about China, WMS Industries (Symbol WMS) and Penn National Gaming, Inc (symbol PENN) are both worth a look.
If anyone has comments on the other Hong Kong exchange traded stocks in Macau with more information, I invite you to comment on this blog and share with others your insight.

Season Greetings and Happy New Year,

Freewilly

What If you had to pick just one superstar stock ........

Ah Yes, If you could just pick that one stock that is a sure shot superstar. As a purveyor of stock advice you will time and again get the request from a friend that has a CD coming due that they are making 0.25% interest on and want to put it into a can't miss superstar stock. Well the last time I got this request back in 2000 I told my friend to purchase Lucent Technology which had been growing at 40% a year for multiple years in the optical electronics business and also Pfizer (Symbol PFE) which had just purchased Warner-Lambert and their superstar growth drug Lipitor. These stocks just like Tiger Woods a few months ago, appeared to be rock solid, can't miss safe bets. Well they both ended up crashing down in stock value and both were investment disasters. Tiger still has his golf talent, but faces a tough road ahead bringing his life back in order. I feel sad for his wife and children.
That brings us to today, December 19th, 2009 where the superstar question is posed again. Well based on the premise that people will continue to eat and there will continue to be more people in the world, I will pose to you an agriculture stock. Thomas Jefferson would have been happy about that. The name I will pick is Monsanto (Symbol MON). The stock is up 58% over the last 3 years, 18% net profit. Sales growth around 13% and continued earnings growth.
From an excellent group of Potash (POT), Agrium (AGU), Mosaic (MOS) and Scotts Miracle Grow (SMG), I picked out Monsanto because it also has the kicker of selling the material that goes inside all the airbags in automobiles. I can be sure people will eat and also cars will continue to collide together as we have 20 Inches of snow coming down in the northeast right now. The stock trades north of $80.00, so you will need to pick an entry spot for purchase. Maybe during a lull in February 2010, when everyone else is piling into the tech stocks.
I guess Tiger took his guidance from the "Advice Dog" over to the right, and he is an easy target right now so I will not take cheap shots at him, but golf needs him to come back and bring the magic back to the links. He should also get some corrective lenses, because he apparently is not able to see his wife Elin, who is a knockout.

So chow down and buy some Monsanto,

Freewilly