This week’s stock performers: The best and the worst locally

Courtesy

Bill’s Gamblin’ Hall & Saloon.

Biggest gainer: Pinnacle Entertainment

With the benchmark Standard & Poor's 500 index falling 1.5 percent this week amid weak corporate earnings reports, Allegiant Travel Co. bucked the trend and rose 4.4 percent after it reported its 39th consecutive quarterly profit. The biggest local gainer was Pinnacle Entertainment Inc., which was up 7.1 percent from its Oct. 19 close after reporting higher revenue and EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) from its network of regional casinos. Pinnacle closed at $12.73.

Biggest loser: Caesars Entertainment

Gaming stocks were mixed this week, with MGM Resorts International, Boyd Gaming and IGT falling from their Oct. 19 closing prices while Pinnacle and Las Vegas Sands rose and investors bid up the price of Wynn Resorts and Bally Technologies after those companies reported profits in the third quarter.

The biggest decliner among all local companies was Caesars Entertainment, which fell 8.5 percent from its Oct. 19 close. Caesars finished at $5.85, well off its 52-week high of $17.90.

Even as Caesars struggles to make a profit in part because of hefty interest costs on its $19.9 billion in debt, the company has been talking about spending hundreds of millions of dollars on projects like the reinvention of Bill's Gamblin' Hall & Saloon on the Strip into a boutique property with a hot nightclub, which would require $185 million in financing; and a $134 million plan to add a conference center to Harrah's Atlantic City.

Debt analysts haven't yet weighed in on the conference center plan, but Fitch Ratings said Friday it had a "circumspect view" of the Bill's plan given uncertainties about whether the renovated property would generate enough income to cover payments on the $185 million loan.

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