The decline is relentless. It was in late March that Brean Capital put its reputation on the line and made a bullish call on Macau stocks. It had a $174 target on Wynn from $132. Wynn is now at $114, nearly cut in half from its highs. It called for a $65 target on Las Vegas Sands from $56. LVS is now trading below $52. A $27 target on MGM from $22.60, now trading at $19.30. Finally, it had a $31 target on Melco Crown (MPEL) from $23, and Melco is trading at $19.75.

That’s a batting average of 0. All of its bullish calls have declined, with the most damage being done by MGM at a loss of 14.5%, and its best call, comparatively, being LVS, down only 7.5%. Full disclosure, in my commentary on that bullish call, I said Wynn and LVS were headed down though a cautionary hedge may be warranted, MGM was safe to buy on dips only, and Melco was OK to go long but to keep your eye on system financial trouble. I was wrong on Melco and MGM.

It could be that Brean was just trying to unload a few positions on the four stocks it was calling to go up, in which case it succeeded on all four of them. Either that, or it has egg on its face and its clients are pretty upset. I would tend to think these calls were all fake, because firms like Brean can get clients by simply publishing their annual returns instead of pinning themselves to specific stock calls and even more meaningless “targets”. They don’t have to stick their necks out in order to get business. They simply have to make the right calls and keep them private, and word will spread. So I would say Brean succeeded here in fooling those who follow “targets” and unloaded their Macau stocks on unsuspecting retail investors.

The troubling thing though is that all four of these stocks, including Melco which was most surprising, simply continued to tank despite heavily oversold conditions. While Melco’s Q1 profit fell 75% year over year, it’s not that itself that is surprising. Rather, it’s that despite expectations of earnings declines, which should normally put in bids under stock prices, Melco just kept falling. Its newest resort City of Dreams Manilla only added $2.9M to its earnings, which is just a drop in the bucket compared to its flagship property City of Dreams Macau. This should remind us all of how massive Macau is, and that expanding to smaller markets does not make up for those losses.