Bally’s shares began trading in March lower than anticipated after being downgraded by analyst David Katz.
Katz, an analyst at Jefferies, has evaluated Bally’s ($BALY) and lowered his rating from “hold” to “buy”. Katz also lowered the stock’s price point from $54 to $38. At the time of writing, $BALY has now fallen to $34.92.
Bally’s is a Rhode Island-based casino operator and missed both it's top and bottom lines after the Q4 report. Bally’s reported $547.7m with a net income of $20.2m and a net loss of $115.3m.
Lee Fenton, Bally’s CEO, said: “During the quarter, we made significant progress on integration of our acquired assets, defining our strategic goals for 2022 and deploying capital strategically including progress in growth projects in Lincoln, Atlantic City and Kansas City. Additionally, we repurchased $87m of our common shares during the quarter.”
Katz had this to say regarding the rating change for Bally's: “Our rating change to Hold from Buy is not driven by the quarter but by the change in the market’s patience for digital gaming profitability and Bally’s anticipated protracted investment cycle in land-based gaming.” In March of 2021, Bally’s stock price hit its 52-week high of $75.92. Since then, the stock has trended downward.
Bally’s is preparing to launch its mobile app in New York in April of 2022. According to Bally’s chairman Soo Kim, this could be affecting the market: “We have a longer-term plan,” Kim said. “I think part of this is why maybe our plan isn’t fully being grasped by the public markets. Public markets tend to be very short-term oriented.”
Keep an eye on Bally's as its stock price could grow with the New York mobile app launch in April.
