The S&P 500 bets on Penn National Gaming Inc. and Caesar’s Entertainment Inc. amid increasing legalization of sports betting in the US.
Penn PENN,
and Caesar’s CZR,
has been announced as an incoming member of the S&P 500 index SPX,
Friday afternoon with semiconductor manufacturer NXP Semiconductors NV NXPI and Generac Holdings Inc. GNRC, which sells equipment used to generate power. Flowserve Corp FLS, SL Green Realty Corp SLG, Xerox Holdings Corp. XRX and Vontier Corp VNT will drop to the S&P MidCap 400 to make room. The changes are scheduled to take place before the start of trading on March 22nd.
Penn has increased its stake by almost 750% over the past year amid the further legalization of sports betting and its investment in the popular sports website Barstool. Penn uses Barstool’s brand on its sports gambling platform, which competes with Flutter Entertainment PLC FLTR,
DraftKings DKNG,
William Hill WMH,
Caesar’s and others like US states legalize sports gambling. Michigan became the 15th state to allow online sports gambling earlier this year.
Barstool founder Dave Portnoy spoke regularly about the stock during the public investment during the COVID-19 pandemic. The Penn stock closed a record high of $ 130.47 on Friday and rose about 7% in after-hours trading after the announcement.
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Caesar’s is teaming up with William Hill to create a bigger competitor for online sports betting in the US, and the stock has made strong gains over the past year after falling in late February and early March last year for fear of the impending pandemic has grown. Caesar’s shares have risen 550% over the past twelve months, and prices have risen by more than 5% after hours.
The NXP share has roughly doubled in the past year, amid the shortage of semiconductors that hit carmakers, which is a key segment for NXP, and the shares rose more than 5% in the extended session. Generac has risen by almost 250% in the last twelve months and by about 4% in late trading.
For more: Global chip shortages are expected to last next year, and that’s good news for semiconductor stocks
Xerox shares struggled despite investor Carl Icahn starting to stir for change at the printing plant while owning more than 15% of the shares. The stock drops after an attempted hostile takeover of HP Inc. HPQ,
failed early last year and rose 12.6% over the past 12 months when the S&P 500 added 58.8%. Xerox shares fell less than 2% on Friday. SL Green and Vontier’s shares also fell less than 2% on Friday, while Flowserve was steady.