Influences of Unemployment Rates and S&P 500 Movements On Eight Selected U.S. Casino Stock Performances

Abstract

This paper studies the causal effects of changes in unemployment rates and
U.S. S&P 500 returns on changes in stock returns of selected eight U.S. casinos individually.
Monthly data from January, 1982 through July, 2012 are employed. The
time series data in percentage changes are found stationary. As a result, multivariate
VAR in first-difference is implemented since the objective is to investigate the effects
of changes in causal variables on changes in individual selected casino stock
returns. The estimates depict weakly positive and somewhat mixed causal influences
of changes in unemployment rates on changes in casino stock returns. In the case
of the changes in S&P 500, the results are uniformly positive and relatively strong.
In other words, the latter unleash stronger influence than the former on changes in
casino stock returns with mixed net short-run interactive feedback effects.