Understanding the Tailwind Behind Las Vegas Sands Shares.

By Ken Smith • Wednesday, April 12 12:05 • Permanent Link

One of the standouts of today's afternoon trading session was Las Vegas Sands, which logged a 1.1% performance and outperformed the S&P 500 by 1.0%. The Lodging stock is now trading at $56.53 per share and may still have upside potential because it is still -14.21% under its average target price of $65.89. Analysts have set target prices ranging from $61.8 to $76.0 dollars per share, and have given the stock an average rating of buy.

The market seems to share this optimistic view, since Las Vegas Sands has a short interest of only 4.3% (this is the percentage of the share float that is being shorted). Each short position represents an investor's expectation that the price of the stock will decrease in the future.

Short selling involves borrowing shares and then selling them at current market prices. In the successful version of the strategy, the shares are purchased at a lower price at some time in the future. The investor then returns the shares to the lender, and keeps the profit made on the sell/buy transaction.

A possible indicator of market sentiment on a stock (besides its share price, of course) is the portion of institutional investors that make up its shareholders. Institutions such as banks, hedge funds, and wealth managers deploy significant resources towards identifying good investments. If they are invested heavily in a given company's stock, it could mean it's a good investment. Or it could mean the company is being targeted by a takeover attempt.

For what it's worth, institutions own 42.2% of Las Vegas Sands's shares, which is an average amount. It means that many institutions are invested, but not to the extent that they would be in a stock such as Apple or Amazon, whose institutional ownership rates hover around 60%. Bear in mind that institutional ownership is just one piece of the puzzle in determining market sentiment, and you should not consider this factor alone in making an investment decision.

In conclusion, we see positive market sentiment regarding Las Vegas Sands because of an analyst consensus of some upside potential, a buy rating, an average amount of shares sold short, and only a small number of institutional investors. At Market Inference, we believe that any investment decision should be preceded by an in-depth analysis of the company's fundamental values and a comparison with similar stocks.

Here's a snapshot of some important facts to keep in mind about LVS:

The stock has trailing 12 month earnings per share (EPS) of $-1.41
Las Vegas Sands has a trailing 12 month Price to Earnings (P/E) ratio of -40.1 compared to the S&P 500 average of 15.97
The company has a Price to Book (P/B) ratio of 11.1 in contrast to the S&P 500's average ratio of 2.95
Las Vegas Sands is a Consumer Discretionary company, and the sector average P/E and P/B ratios are 22.33 and 3.12 respectively

The above analysis is intended for educational purposes only and was performed on the basis of publicly available data. It is not to be construed as a recommendation to buy or sell any security. Any buy, sell, or other recommendations mentioned in the article are direct quotations of consensus recommendations from the analysts covering the stock, and do not represent the opinions of Market Inference or its writers. Past performance, accounting data, and inferences about market position and corporate valuation are not reliable indicators of future price movements. Market Inference does not provide financial advice. Investors should conduct their own review and analysis of any company of interest before making an investment decision.