What Happened?
Shares of luxury ski resort company Vail Resorts (NYSE:MTN) fell 6.3% in the morning session after the company reported third-quarter earnings results. Its number of skier visits unfortunately missed, and its EPS fell short of Wall Street's estimates. Revenue was in line, with management attributing the underwhelming top-line results to unfavorable weather conditions in North America and Australia. The company also called out the post-COVID normalization after a record visitation in North America during the 2022/2023 ski season, suggesting investors might have to tame their near-term growth forecasts.
Looking ahead, management provided more constructive top-line guidance, which assumes a return to normal weather conditions compared to fiscal 2024. However, the bottom line guidance wasn't so strong as adjusted EBITDA guidance for FY'2025 fell below expectations. Overall, this was a weaker quarter.
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What The Market Is Telling Us
Vail Resorts’s shares are not very volatile and have only had 3 moves greater than 5% over the last year. In that context, today’s move indicates the market considers this news meaningful, although it might not be something that would fundamentally change its perception of the business.
The biggest move we wrote about over the last year was 4 months ago when the stock dropped 14.3% on the news that the company reported first quarter earnings results. Its EPS missed, and its revenue fell short of Wall Street's estimates. Overall, the results could have been better.
Vail Resorts is down 14.7% since the beginning of the year, and at $179.93 per share, it is trading 25.7% below its 52-week high of $242.25 from September 2023. Investors who bought $1,000 worth of Vail Resorts’s shares 5 years ago would now be looking at an investment worth $759.25.
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