Casino Stock Winners and Losers: MGM Mirage
Updated from 11:07 a.m. EDT
MGM Mirage
(MGM) - Get Report
shares surged Monday on an analyst upgrade and news that billionaire majority stake holder Kirk Kerkorian's investment vehicle bought 14.3 million shares.
MGM shares closed up 14% to $8.74.
Before the purchase at $7 a share, Kekorian's Tracinda Corp. had held a 53.8% stake in the casino operator. That stake is now about 42%, reduced by a recent stock offering that raised $1 billion.
Joseph Greff of JPMorgan upgraded the stock to overweight from neutral and raised his year-end price target to $11 from $9. Greff cited MGM's improved liquidity following last week's
and the "view that sell-side/buy-side investor expectations for MGM's same-store LV Strip portfolio for '09-'10 are really low and there is an almost uniformly negative expectation for
."
Elsewhere among casino stocks, shares of
Las Vegas Sands
(LVS) - Get Report
closed higher by 11.6% to $10.30.
Wynn Entertainment
(WYNN) - Get Report
was up 9.2% to $41.40.
Boyd Gaming
(BYD) - Get Report
finished up 12.6% to $10.67.
Penn National Gaming
(PENN) - Get Report
was up 5.6% to $32.07.
Melco Crown Entertainment
(MPEL)
was up 6.4% to $5.81.
Ameristar Casinos
(ASCA)
finished up 6.9% to $20.06.
Isle of Capri Casinos
(ISLE)
was up 7.3% to $12.73.
