Churchill Downs Can Handle Anything, But its Stock Can’t

When looking at the latest business moves and financial health of Churchill Downs (CHDN), it all seems to make sense. It looks like normal, savvy business people are doing normal, savvy things, looking to expand where they can, shifting resources to more profitable sections of the business, not borrowing too much money.

Downs has shifted its focus dramatically over the past two and a half years. Racing has gone from 41% of its revenues down to 32%. Casino has gone up from 30.5% to 40.5%. The reason is simple. Casino is more profitable than racing, at least for them. Gross profit margins on racing have been between 15% and 17% since 2012, while gross margins on casino have been around 26-27%. So you can’t blame a company for doing what works and focusing on the better parts of business.

The only problem is, its stock movement makes no sense. From 2007 to 2008, Downs was nearly cut in half from top to bottom. But look at a chart of it now and that walloping looks like a hiccup.

Does this look normal to you? If it does, then you have only been trading for 7 years at most.