The Case-Shiller home price indices were released yesterday. Nearly all 20 cities experienced a decline. The reading is from August. The Las Vegas aggregate index saw a .1% increase. Of course, when you are dealing with increases this small and measurement error, the true population of prices could be anything. Up, down or flat. Nevertheless, it was actually surprising that it did not slide down further. There may be some lingering support from the homebuyer tax credit extensions (which went until Sept 30). In addi... read more

Clark County gaming revenues leapt month-over-month by over 16%. That is the second month-over-month gain this year and a 13.8% increase year-over-year. Naturally there is a random component to all of this so we cannot say it is a trend. We need a few more months before I would call it a recovery. Pronouncements by the public gaming firms are going to be enthusiastic but are not likely to be jubilent as they need to balance nice looking projections against a backdrop of shaky national economic news. Bloomberg i... read more