Lower than anticipated takings from the over 30 casinos in Macau during the first week of 2019 has reportedly prompted brokerage firm, Sanford C Bernstein and Company, to forecast that January’s upcoming aggregated gross gaming revenues tally may remain relatively static.

Unconvincing channel checks:

According to a report from GGRAsia, Sanford C Bernstein and Company analysts Kelsey Zhu, Eunice Lee and Vitaly Umansky explained that recent channel checks indicated that Macau’s casinos had recorded daily aggregated gross gaming revenues for the first week of the year that were approximately 12% higher year-on-year at around $105.28 million.

Chinese economic fragility:

However, the researchers reportedly cautioned that these figures should be considered with ‘a bit of skepticism as weekly channel checks have proven to be less than accurate’ while also warning that the ongoing weakness of the Chinese economy may lead to smaller volumes of cash being wagered at casinos in Macau and see the actual numbers prove to be more ‘volatile.’

Predicted 2% range:

As such, the company team detailed that they expect Macau’s aggregated gross gaming revenues for January to come in at between $3.31 billion to $3.18 billion, which would represent a year-on-year rise or fall of about 2%.

Reportedly read the advice from Zhu, Lee and Umansky…

“As we have been highlighting, the macro environment in China is creating headwinds risk for gross gaming revenue growth in Macau in 2019.”

Long-running success:

GGRAsia pointed out that July of 2016 was the last time that Macau saw its aggregated gross gaming revenues experience negative growth as that month’s tally of $2.41 billion represented a decline of some 4.5% when compared with the same 31-day period in 2015. The former Portuguese enclave has since seen 29 consecutive months of growth that was topped off by December’s figure swelling by 16.6% year-on-year to hit $3.27 billion.

Forecast corroborated:

Backing up the warning from Sanford C Bernstein and Company, the Instinet equity trading subsidiary of Japanese investments firm Nomura Holdings Incorporated reportedly forecast that it expects Macau’s aggregated gross gaming revenues for January to remain flat or improve by a maximum of about 5%.

Reportedly read the advice from Instinet…

“We believe gross gaming revenues per day benefited from a slightly higher weekend-to-weekday proportion, which we estimate positively impacted daily gross gaming revenues by about $2.11 million, assuming weekend demand at about 1.5 times that of a typical weekday.”