With the Chinese New Year taking place on February 19th in two days, it’s a good time to review the now one-year-old Macau gaming stocks bear market and see where we stand. This bear market began on February 28, 2014 when Macau stocks topped out, incidentally three days before my very first Calvin Ayre column on March 3, 2014 entitled The China Bubble. There I introduced my money-supply-centric debt-focused macro analytical approach to trend forecasting and what I saw as an imminent Macau bear.

Concession statement: The good timing from that article was entirely a coincidence. I have no exact timing tools, nor do I believe there are any real ones out there. That and the catalysts for the year-old bear have been different from what I cited there. While money supply slowdown has certainly figured in fundamentally speaking, catalysts for the recent downturn have been Chinese government crackdowns rather than rising interest rates. So arguably, I got it wrong, even though the call was right. What it also means is that the interest-rate induced fall is still ahead of us if and when it happens, and could happen at any time.

Short price review for four Macau stocks since March:

1) Wynn Macau Ltd. (WYNMY) down 37%

2) Sands China (SCHYY) down 40%

3) MGM China Holdings (MCHVF) down 41%

4) Galaxy Entertainment Group (GXYEY) down 43%