Las Vegas Sands shares gain back 45% (LVS)

The last three trading days have been huge for Las Vegas Sands Corp. (NYSE:LVS) shares gaining back 45%, to quote Robert Denrio from Casino (1995): In the casino, the cardinal rule is to keep them playing and to keep them coming back. The longer they play, the more they lose, and in the end, we get it all.

LVS shareholders who placed a bet in the past few days are up big, and the house is winning back their losses, including Ace Rothstein.  The 5 Day chart for LVS is unreal, just take a look:

Finally, a brave analyst from Thomas Weisel Partners LLC went to bat for the beat-up Casino company and included Wynn Resorts (NASDAQ:WYNN) as well:

Despite a slowdown in Macau gross gaming revenue last month, Las Vegas Sands Corp. and Wynn Resorts Ltd. are priced just right given recent estimate cuts, an analyst said Friday.

Gross gaming revenue, or gaming "win," for Macau slipped 7 percent in December to $958 million compared with a 3 percent increase in November. Both Las Vegas Sands and Wynn Resorts have casinos located in the Chinese gambling enclave of Macau.

"Win" is a gross figure, with no operating costs or other expenses deducted, and represents casino revenue only — not hotel, restaurant or bar revenue.

Jake Fuller of Thomas Weisel Partners LLC said there is limited risk to his fourth-quarter estimates for the Las Vegas-based casino operators' since he trimmed them in early December.

"We maintain our positive bias on both stocks on the view that current valuation appropriately discounts near-term estimate risk and we see material upside potential against recovered earnings in the 2010 to 2011 timeframe," he wrote in a client note.

Fuller kept "Overweight" ratings on Wynn and Las Vegas Sands. He also reaffirmed a $60 share price target on Wynn and a $13 price target on shares of Las Vegas Sands.

However with big moves there is the danger of day traders cashing in their winnings. 

Careful if you are long LVS here, another quote from Ace puts it all into perspective:

Ace Rothstein: [narrating] The town will never be the same. After the Tangiers, the big corporations took it all over. Today it looks like Disneyland. And while the kids play cardboard pirates, Mommy and Daddy drop the house payments and Junior's college money on the poker slots. In the old days, dealers knew your name, what you drank, what you played. Today, it's like checkin' into an airport. And if you order room service, you're lucky if you get it by Thursday. Today, it's all gone. You get a whale show up with four million in a suitcase, and some twenty-five-year-old hotel school kid is gonna want his Social Security Number. After the Teamsters got knocked out of the box, the corporations tore down practically every one of the old casinos. And where did the money come from to rebuild the pyramids? Junk bonds. But in the end, I wound up right back where I started. I could still pick winners, and I could still make money for all kinds of people back home. And why mess up a good thing?