Las Vegas Sands Stock Slips On Morgan Stanley Downgrade: Retail Sentiment Sours

Shares of Las Vegas Sands Corp ($LVS) dipped nearly 4% on Tuesday after the luxury resort company got a downgrade from Morgan Stanley, dampening retail sentiment.

Morgan Stanley downgraded Las Vegas Sands to ‘Equal Weight’ from ‘Overweight’ with a $51 price target, reduced from $54, The Fly.com reported.

According to the report, Morgan Stanley took into account a "more guarded house view" on China GDP, which may constrain the company’s outperformance and cautious consumer trends in Singapore.

The analyst reportedly noted a slowdown by Chinese tourists to Singapore, which is home to the iconic to Marina Bay Sands resort. Singapore is a key market for the company’s casinos and resorts.

The company recently agreed to a development agreement with the Singapore Tourism Board for an expansion project for the Singapore resort, making an upfront premium payment of $963 million.

Sentiment on Stocktwits turned ‘bearish’ from ‘bullish’ a day ago. Message volumes climbed into the ‘extremely high’ zone from ‘normal.’

LVS sentiment meter and message volumes on Jan 14 as of 9:57 pm

Las Vegas Sands is expected to report its fourth quarter earnings later this month. Wall Street expects the company to post earnings per share of $0.60 on estimated revenue of $2.9 billion.

Las Vegas Sands' portfolio of properties includes Marina Bay Sands in Singapore and The Venetian Macao, The Londoner Macao, The Parisian Macao, The Plaza Macao and Four Seasons Hotel Macao, and Sands Macao in Macao SAR, China, through majority ownership in Sands China Ltd.  

For updates and corrections, email newsroom[at]stocktwits[dot]com.<