What Happened?
Shares of luxury ski resort company Vail Resorts (NYSE: MTN) jumped 13.2% in the morning session after the company announced the return of Rob Katz as CEO, replacing Kirsten Lynch. Katz, who previously held the chief executive role from 2006 to 2021 and currently serves as executive chair. For investors, Katz's leadership is likely to inspire confidence, given his history of driving growth and expanding Vail's resort portfolio.
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What The Market Is Telling Us
Vail Resorts’s shares are not very volatile and have only had 9 moves greater than 5% over the last year. Moves this big are rare for Vail Resorts and indicate this news significantly impacted the market’s perception of the business.
The biggest move we wrote about over the last year was 12 months ago when the stock dropped 14.3% on the news that the company reported weak first quarter 2024 results. Its EPS missed and its revenue fell short of Wall Street's estimates.
Management attributed the weakness to "a combination of unfavorable conditions and broader industry normalization post-COVID following record visitation in the U.S. during the 2022-2023 ski season." These challenges drove the 3.2% decline in Skier visits during the quarter. Overall, the results could have been better.
Vail Resorts is down 3% since the beginning of the year, and at $169.91 per share, it is trading 13.1% below its 52-week high of $195.44 from December 2024. Investors who bought $1,000 worth of Vail Resorts’s shares 5 years ago would now be looking at an investment worth $851.25.
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