Six Flags revenue down 2% for quarter over last year

I don't know. It was a weak quarter. Here's some YTD numbers for the first 9 months:

Revenue is up $19.3 million.
Total Revenue per cap is up another $0.94 to $39.02
Attendance is flat with 53 fewer operating days.
Costs increased by $14.7 million (including $10.6 million for labor)

Essentially, they're not losing attendance or revenue overall, but rather spending more to bring the parks up to par (advertising, labor, etc), which is exactly what people bitched about needing done prior to Red Zone.

They've stopped the slide (admittedly at additional cost) and have guests more satisfied than ever.

Compare overall performance to last year's and things look alright. Compare financial performance to Wall Street expectation and things look dismal.

Bad quarter, yes, but in the big scheme of things I still say they're on the right track.

RGB said . . .

At first glance, I thought the 18% drop in price was a bit extreme. After all, the revenue was "only" down 2 percent for the quarter. But again, when your stock price is so low to start with, a drop of 5 or 10 cents shows up as several percent.

Stock prices are more about profit than revenue. SIX's profit for the quarter was less than half of the expected. They count on a good 3rd quarter to pay down debt and save for future capital expenditures. Removing rides will give them a write-off for the fiscal year, but its like being upside-down on a car loan. They can sell the rides for pennies on the dollar but that does not reduce the debt associated with their purchase.

Zima said ...

FUN is down a cool 22%. Sounds like a good investment to me!

Jeff touched on this some, but what you miss is that FUN consistently pays out $1.60 or so per year per share. If you bought 100 shares 10 years ago at $44 a share, when you build in the split and the quarterly dividends, your investment would have almost doubled in value. To me, that is a good investment.

To compare, 100 shares of SIX purchased at the same time would have cost about the same $43.50 per share, it split in 1998, and would be worth less than 10% of what you paid.

*** This post was edited by CoasterDad64 11/11/2007 2:17:02 PM ***

raser, thats not a bad idea, maybe I will try making a site of my own. I suspect its not really all that much work. I'll keep you posted

ok lets see if i can do this now

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Jeff said
I'm aware of the recent performance of FUN. If you're done implying I'm a moron, you do realize that the distribution paid over those ten years doesn't go away, right? I don't have a ton invested, it has been worth my time.

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This is what is called a slippery slope fallacy: just because one thing is true does not mean other things are also true. I think you are wrong but I don't necessarily think you are a moron. That would be a personal attack, or Ad Hominem, which is another fallacy. I can think your argument is wrong without saying anything about your person.
In fact the distribution could go away if your are reinvesting it. I'm not disputing the stock has gone up or that the dividend is a nice payout if the stock is also rising at the same pace as the S&P, but it's not. It's your money, so you can do with it what you please, but I'm not going to agree with you on that.
What is the reason you have for owning Cedar Fair stock anyway? Is the most profitable stock you could find? Does it pay the highest dividend or have the best potential for breakout? Are you very interested in the market; interested enough to scour the finance pages looking for the perfect stock? Or are you rather holding this stock because you like Cedar Fair, or just like roller coasters? Wouldn't that be a very emotional reason to invest your hard earned dollars? I believe people who are roller coaster enthusiasts and stock holders of FUN are not looking at the return as much as the social status of holding the "units." What better way prove you know more than someone else in an argument about Cedar Fair than to quantitate it? I have more shares than you so I know more than you. Forget about the fact that it's not a true assertion at all, you know more because you have more invested. I should have known you don't want to sell your stake in the company. You aren't interested in performance but interested in the power you gain from holding. It's not about money at all, its about emotion.

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Jeff said
There is no similarity between Six Flags and Cedar Fair because Cedar Fair has been profitable for decades. Six Flags has not.

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This is a common misconception that is easily illustrated by simple probability. If I flip a coin and it lands on heads what is the probability of flipping another heads? Many people would group the two independant events together and think there would be a lesser chance of flipping heads on the second flip. In fact the past does not matter when considering future events. The chance of flipping heads is exactly 1/2. Six Flags might have done horribly in the past and Cedar Fair fantastically. Does that mean anything when looking to the future? No.

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Jeff said
And when you're done knowing it all, let me know how many forum apps you've written, and the salary you command as a programmer.

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I'm impressed, you managed to use 3 logical fallacies here. Not only did you use Ad Hominem and Slippery Slope but also the Red Herring play. You're trying to distract me from the claim at hand; this forum sucks standalone and compared to many others. That point is not refuted by asking me how many apps I have written. I see you love to use fallacy to falsely assert your superiority. Unfortunately you're outbursts are false.
I will humour you though with your claim that I my knowledge is bound to my experience. Let me compare the number and quality of "apps" you have written compared to the phpBB community I linked to. I'm sorry you lose. Salary? You lose again. If your saying you are smarter than phpBB, you are going to be hard pressed to prove your point. Good luck

Are you done chest thumping yet, or are you going to post pictures of your unit next to make your point? Or perhaps we should start flipping coins to decide our investments?

I'm meeting my financial, career and personal goals, and I'm pretty happy. So tell me, what am I doing wrong?

As CoasterDad64 mentioned, I'm still up with my units. That works for me, and it wouldn't be an expensive mistake even if it went the other way.

Zima,

Please do us all a favor and follow the Slippery Slope to another coaster site. This one is obviously well below your personal standards (and income apparently). Thanks.

Does the figures from last year include the sold parks or not. If they do of course the numbers from this year would be lower.

Jeff your first paragraph is again irrelevant so I will ignore it.

[quote ] Jeff
So tell me, what am I doing wrong?

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Gladly
Your style of argumentation is used intentionally to cut down other people rather than to discuss the point at hand. You run this website and think you are the best at everything. You think you are better than me and you don't even know me. You could be talking to the Queen of England for all you know. You are 34 years old and yelling at kids in their teens. Don't you think you are a little old for this type of behavior. I'd hope by the time I'm that old, I'm a little more mature than you are. Don't think I'm right? Why not look at this list I compiled of a few of your recent quotes:

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Jeff said in other threads
Puppies and rainbows give me pleasure. Telling you you're wrong, Rob, was just in response to you asking if you were wrong.

You're being childish. If you invest in a company, this kind of action, admitting you were wrong and making a correction, is what you applaud leadership for, not chastise them. Besides, a sell-off causes the unit price to go down, and people aren't going to piss away their investment. Grow up.

That's an unattributed load of crap. You don't know that.

As for your arbitrary math and numbers, those are hopelessly meaningless.

Hey, I could have jumped on camera and said, "Meh, I don't care," but I didn't. I could crap a golden egg with the key to saving Geauga Lake and curing cancer engraved on it and some of you would still find something wrong with what I do. None of you are active on the site and local. If you were, we'd probably at least know each other by face.

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So you say you're happy, thats great but how is everyone around you doing? I for one am sick of you, and thats why I'm here telling you about it rather than doing something else a thousand miles away from you. I'm sick of you thinking your the best by driving any differing opinion away and I'm here to prove to you that you suck and this website sucks. I feel I've done a pretty good job of that so Flame On, if you dare. Just remember you're 34 years old and some people would be so bold as to call you an adult. I'd venture a guess and say most of the people on this site are half your age. Amusement parks are meant to show that no one is ever too old to be a kid, not that no one is ever too old to be an asshole.

You know every forum usually has a troll who surfs looking for someone to prey on with a personal attack or uncalled for comment. I've never seen another forum where it's the administrator though. What exactly are you trying to accomplish here?

you know what's odd about this whole discussion we've been in? I don't even think Six Flags is doing all that well. We never discussed that did we? Well from looking at the position they are in right now I'd say they aren't doing very well at all. Too bad Cedar Fair isn't either.

Pagoda Gift Shop I'm glad you crawled out of the woodwork to make that post, but rather than leave why don't you just stop sucking?

Jesus, Jeff. Just get out the hammah already.

Gladly. Seriously, who goes on a "you don't know me" rant and then turns around and judges me? I guess a guy who uses a screen name after a girly drink. :)

I know Zima is gone, but damn. Sounds like a high school kid who just completed a lesson on basic logical reasoning. The rest of the reasoning is nonsense - at best. Using Zima's logic, the decisions (and track record) of executive management plays no role in the success of failure of a business, only the simplest probablity of random pass/fail. I guess Microsoft, Apple, (insert any successful business here) must have trick coins.

So anyway, how large do you think Shapiro's bonus will be this year?

Geez, down another 9.6% today, to $1.97 a share. Much higher than normal volume too. Doesn't sound good a-tall.