Melco Keeps the Prize of Relatively Safe By Comparison

Those who read this column know I have a tendency to paranoia on a bearish tilt. Still, when I see a good company I point it out. I’ve always had a soft spot for Melco Crown (MPEL), and though I don’t think it is a particularly good buy right now, I’ve never been overly bearish on it in comparison with other gaming stocks.

It continues to be well-managed, conservative, and a relatively safer place to put your money if you are intent on sticking it in Macau, macro situation be damned. If that’s your thing, Melco should not be traded, but rather held long term and used to ride out the storm. I don’t expect it to gain much if at all in the next few months considering that globally, things are just now coming to a head. But on the way back up, Melco will outperform, mostly because it seems financially equipped to handle the crisis, or at least semi-crisis about to hit. I’ll venture a timing guess and say by September/October global capital markets could be in full panic mode.

First, what exactly is converging now, and then why Melco can ride it out without too much damage, or at least a lot less damage than other casinos will sustain.

If you’ve ever wondered why most stock market crashes and semi-crashes seem to repeatedly happen around September/October, I believe I’ve found the proximate cause. The ultimate cause is of course a slowdown or reversal in money growth after a long period of strong money growth. But October 1907, October 1929, October 1987, October 1997, October 2002, and of course late September/October 2008, can’t be a coincidence.