Vegas room rate pressure steals Caesars upbeat Q2’s thunder

Stocks of Las Vegas-based casino operator Caesars Entertainment Corporation (CEC) plunged to its lowest since its debt restructuring in 2017, as worries on Vegas hotel bookings overshadowed its upbeat second quarter results for 2018.

Initially, investors were in a festive mood as CEC reported a net income of $29 million in the second quarter of 2018 from a 1.43 billion net loss in the same period last year. CEC’s net revenues also grew more than 100 percent to $2.12 billion in the three months ending June 30, 2018, from $1.01 billion to $2.12 billion.

CEC quarterly earnings of $0.04 per share surpassed Zacks Equity Research Consensus Estimate of $0.01 per share and topped “consensus revenue estimates two times over the last four quarters.”

The casino operator also reported that same-store net revenues expanded 2.8 percent to $2.12 billion from $2.06 billion, while marketing costs dropped 6.6 percent, or $34 million.