First 10 days of Jan, first good news for gaming

January has already given way to some good news for Macau’s gaming sector, according to investment analyst firm Sanford C. Bernstein, which notes that the first 10 days of this month have trended higher than average throughout December.
Spurred on by the public holiday on January 1, the subsequent 10 days recorded an average daily revenue of HKD650 million, signaling an increase of around 20 percent compared with the daily average from the full month of December.
The promising results are “likely to be driven by both VIP and premium mass, and serve as an incremental sign of Macau’s stabilization,” explained analysts at Bernstein.
Factoring in an assumption that the remaining 20 days of the month will produce less promising results, analysts from the firm predicted that January’s gross gaming revenue could reach between MOP18.3 billion and MOP19.5 billion; “representing a year-­on-year decline of 18 percent to 23 percent.”
The news prompted analysts at Morgan Stanley Asia to upgrade their assessment of Macau from “cautious” to “in-line”.  The firm warned that the sector is unlikely to have bottomed-­out.