Is It Time for Carnival’s Investors to Abandon Ship?_老虎社区_美港股上老虎

Is It Time for Carnival’s Investors to Abandon Ship?

InvestorPlace2021-05-11

If you can buy some CCL stock in the low $20s, you definitely should. On Feb. 24,Carnival(NYSE:CCL) sold40.45 million sharesof CCL stock for $25.10 per share. The equity sale raised $1 billion of ...

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股神崛起
·2021-05-11
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The equity sale raised $1 billion of ...</p>\n\n<a href=\"https://investorplace.com/2021/05/is-it-time-to-abandon-ccl-stock-and-the-carnival-ship/\">网页链接</a>\n\n</div>\n","source":"lsy1606302653667","html":"<!DOCTYPE html>\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=utf-8\" />\n<meta name=\"viewport\" content=\"width=device-width,initial-scale=1.0,minimum-scale=1.0,maximum-scale=1.0,user-scalable=no\"/>\n<meta name=\"format-detection\" content=\"telephone=no,email=no,address=no\" />\n<title>Is It Time for Carnival’s Investors to Abandon Ship?</title>\n<style type=\"text/css\">\na,abbr,acronym,address,applet,article,aside,audio,b,big,blockquote,body,canvas,caption,center,cite,code,dd,del,details,dfn,div,dl,dt,\nem,embed,fieldset,figcaption,figure,footer,form,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,header,hgroup,html,i,iframe,img,ins,kbd,label,legend,li,mark,menu,nav,\nobject,ol,output,p,pre,q,ruby,s,samp,section,small,span,strike,strong,sub,summary,sup,table,tbody,td,tfoot,th,thead,time,tr,tt,u,ul,var,video{ font:inherit;margin:0;padding:0;vertical-align:baseline;border:0 }\nbody{ font-size:16px; line-height:1.5; color:#999; background:transparent; }\n.wrapper{ overflow:hidden;word-break:break-all;padding:10px; }\nh1,h2{ font-weight:normal; line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:.6em; }\nh3,h4,h5,h6{ line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:1em; }\nh1{ font-size:24px; }\nh2{ font-size:20px; }\nh3{ font-size:18px; }\nh4{ font-size:16px; }\nh5{ font-size:14px; }\nh6{ font-size:12px; }\np,ul,ol,blockquote,dl,table{ margin:1.2em 0; }\nul,ol{ margin-left:2em; }\nul{ list-style:disc; }\nol{ list-style:decimal; }\nli,li p{ margin:10px 0;}\nimg{ max-width:100%;display:block;margin:0 auto 1em; }\nblockquote{ color:#B5B2B1; border-left:3px solid #aaa; padding:1em; }\nstrong,b{font-weight:bold;}\nem,i{font-style:italic;}\ntable{ width:100%;border-collapse:collapse;border-spacing:1px;margin:1em 0;font-size:.9em; }\nth,td{ padding:5px;text-align:left;border:1px solid #aaa; }\nth{ font-weight:bold;background:#5d5d5d; }\n.symbol-link{font-weight:bold;}\n/* header{ border-bottom:1px solid #494756; } */\n.title{ margin:0 0 8px;line-height:1.3;color:#ddd; }\n.meta {color:#5e5c6d;font-size:13px;margin:0 0 .5em; }\na{text-decoration:none; color:#2a4b87;}\n.meta .head { display: inline-block; overflow: hidden}\n.head .h-thumb { width: 30px; height: 30px; margin: 0; padding: 0; border-radius: 50%; float: left;}\n.head .h-content { margin: 0; padding: 0 0 0 9px; float: left;}\n.head .h-name {font-size: 13px; color: #eee; margin: 0;}\n.head .h-time {font-size: 11px; color: #7E829C; margin: 0;line-height: 11px;}\n.small {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.9); -webkit-transform: scale(0.9); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.smaller {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.8); -webkit-transform: scale(0.8); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.bt-text {font-size: 12px;margin: 1.5em 0 0 0}\n.bt-text p {margin: 0}\n</style>\n</head>\n<body>\n<div class=\"wrapper\">\n<header>\n<h2 class=\"title\">\nIs It Time for Carnival’s Investors to Abandon Ship?\n</h2>\n\n<h4 class=\"meta\">\n\n\n2021-05-11 17:14 GMT+8&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href=https://investorplace.com/2021/05/is-it-time-to-abandon-ccl-stock-and-the-carnival-ship/><strong>InvestorPlace</strong></a>\n\n\n</h4>\n\n</header>\n<article>\n<div>\n<p>If you can buy some CCL stock in the low $20s, you definitely should.\n\nOn Feb. 24,Carnival(NYSE:CCL) sold40.45 million sharesof CCL stock for $25.10 per share. The equity sale raised $1 billion of ...</p>\n\n<a href=\"https://investorplace.com/2021/05/is-it-time-to-abandon-ccl-stock-and-the-carnival-ship/\">网页链接</a>\n\n</div>\n\n\n</article>\n</div>\n</body>\n</html>\n","isBrief":false,"type":0,"news_type":1,"symbol":"CCL","symbol_name":"嘉年华邮轮","start_time":0,"source_url":"https://investorplace.com/2021/05/is-it-time-to-abandon-ccl-stock-and-the-carnival-ship/","article_id":"1141353819","we_media_id":null,"thumbnails":[],"rights":null,"url":"https://stock-news.laohu8.com/highlight/detail?id=1141353819","pubTimestamp":1620724486,"sourceInfo":{"source_id":"lsy1606302653667","name":"InvestorPlace"},"weMediaInfo":null,"summary":"If you can buy some CCL stock in the low $20s, you definitely should.\n\nOn Feb. 24,Carnival(NYSE:CCL)","collect":0,"end_time":0,"defaultTopTitle":"investorplace.com","property":[],"viewcount":null,"language":"en","relate_stocks":{"CCL":"嘉年华邮轮"},"translate_title":"嘉年华邮轮的投资者是时候放弃投资了吗？","themeId":null,"isJumpTheme":false,"ttsUrl":null,"symbols_score_info":{"CCL":0.9},"content_text":"If you can buy some CCL stock in the low $20s, you definitely should.\n\nOn Feb. 24,Carnival(NYSE:CCL) sold40.45 million sharesof CCL stock for $25.10 per share. The equity sale raised $1 billion of much-needed capital for the cruise operator. Unfortunately, those who bought the shares made precisely 1.9% on their investment over the 71 days that ended on May 6. That compares to a 6.2% gain for theS&P 500during the same period.\nCruise stocks continue to face significant volatility. After climbing about 140% since it hit its 52-week low of $11 in October, CCL stock may not have any gas left in the tank.\nIs it time to abandon Carnival’s ship? I’ll have a look at the pros and cons of selling the shares.\nCCL Stock Once Traded Over $70\nWhen you think about it, is 1.9% a bad return over 71 days? On an annualized basis, it’ works out to about 10%. The average annual return of the S&P 500 from 1957 through 2018  was 8%. So, from that perspective, a 1.9% return over 71 days is really not so bad.\nHowever, the fact that investors can eliminate a ton of company- and industry-specific risks by buying the S&P 500 suggests that the risk-adjusted returns of CCL stock over the 71 days are much worse than that of the index.\nWhen I last wrote about Carnival in early March, I wondered whether CCL stock could get back to itsall-time highof $72.70. I concluded that Americans’ desire to get out and travel would intensify as more people in the country become fully vaccinated.\nWell, as of May 4,105 millionAmericans were fully vaccinated, while 150 million had received at least one shot. According to U.S. Census data, there are209.1 millionAmericans 18 or older, so about 50% of adult Americans have been fully vaccinated.\nWhile that’s good, I suspect that cruise reservations won’t start to accelerate until the percentage is much closer to 100%. I realize we won’t actually get there because all kinds of people believe they know better than scientists. But if three-quarters of the adult population gets vaccinated, I believe the various cruise lines’ phones and websites would catch fire from all the future reservations.\nOn May 3, AARP, formerly the American Association of Retired Persons, reported that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) had indicated that it wanted to get U.S.-based cruise shipsback in businessby midsummer. That would be well ahead of its previous target of November 2021.\nUnder the CDC’s new rules, fully vaccinated passengers will only have to take a rapid antigen test when embarking on cruises. Those who are not fully vaccinated can still go on cruises, but they must get polymerase-chain-reaction (PCR) coronavirus tests in advance.\nRoyal Caribbean(NYSE:RCL) CEO Richard Fain said that its ships that recently sailed out of foreign ports had just ten Covid-19 cases out of 100,000 travelers. If that doesn’t tell you something about the future of cruising, nothing will.\nAs I said in March, I do think CCL stock can reach $50 by the end of 2021. Fain’s comments made me more confident about that belief.\nVolatility Is Still High\nU.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen spooked the markets on May 4 when she stated that interest rates might have to rise to make sure the economy doesn’t overheat. Carnival’s stock fell on the news.\nThe Motley Fool’sRich Smith tied Yellen’s comments about interest rates to the unbelievable amount of debt that each of the three major publicly traded cruise operators have amassed over the past 15 months.\n“From the end of 2019 through the most recent quarter, Carnival Corporation’slong-term debt loadhas nearly tripled in size, to $26.5 billion,” Smith wrote in his May 4 article.\n“Smaller Royal Caribbean’s debt load is up 150% at $20.7 billion, and even Norwegian Cruise Line has needed to double up on debt, which now stands at $11.7 billion.”\nConsider Carnival’s best-case scenario.\nIn fiscal 2016, Carnival had an operating margin of 18.7% based on$16.4 billionof revenue and $3.1 billion of operating income. In 2016, it had free cash flow of $2.1 billion [$5.1 billioncash provided by operating activities less $3.1 billion of capital expenditures]. That’s as high as Carnival’s free cash flow (FCF) has been in recent years.\nEven if it issues no new debt,  gets its FCF up to 2016 levels, and uses all of that FCF to pay down debt, it would take close to 13 years to  pay down its debt entirely. Under the same conditions, it would need a little over seven years  to return to its 2019 debt level of around$11.5 billion.\nFirst, Carnival has to get to get its FCF up to $2.1 billion. That could take 12-24 months. Then it’s got to hope that interest rates haven’t increased by much during that time.\nThat’s a tall order.\nThe Bottom Line\nI’ve always liked the cruise industry, despite the fact that its business model requires massive amounts of capital. However, that requirement keeps a lot of would-be competitors out of the game.\nFrom where I sit, now is not the time to abandon the Carnival ship. In fact, if you were one of the investors who bought CCL stock at $25.10 in February, I would have some cash ready in case volatility send its shares into the low $20s in the months ahead.\nOver the long-term, I think the shares could test their all-time high by the end of 2022. Stay the course.\nOn the date of publication, Will Ashworth did not have (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article.","kind":null,"is_publish_news":null,"is_publish_highlight":null,"is_publish_live":null,"is_publish_wemedia":null,"editions":null,"symbols":[],"gpt_button":1},"commentList":[{"id":193050063,"gmtCreate":1620741378352,"gmtModify":1634196679471,"author":{"id":"3578755540401393","authorId":"3578755540401393","name":"股神崛起","avatar":"https://static.tigerbbs.com/96e93d92253ee4a8d0c59acbd5a31c39","vip":1,"crmLevel":3,"crmLevelSwitch":0},"htmlText":"我觉得分析的可以","listText":"我觉得分析的可以","text":"我觉得分析的可以","images":[],"top":1,"highlighted":1,"essential":1,"paper":1,"likeSize":0,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"link":"https://laohu8.com/post/193050063","repostId":1141353819,"repostType":2,"repost":{"id":"1141353819","pubTimestamp":1620724486,"share":"https://www.laohu8.com/m/news/1141353819?lang=&edition=full","pubTime":"2021-05-11 17:14","market":"us","language":"en","title":"Is It Time for Carnival’s Investors to Abandon Ship?","url":"https://stock-news.laohu8.com/highlight/detail?id=1141353819","media":"InvestorPlace","summary":"If you can buy some CCL stock in the low $20s, you definitely should.\n\nOn Feb. 24,Carnival(NYSE:CCL)","content":"<blockquote>\n <b>If you can buy some CCL stock in the low $20s, you definitely should.</b>\n</blockquote>\n<p>On Feb. 24,<b>Carnival</b>(NYSE:<b><u>CCL</u></b>) sold40.45 million sharesof CCL stock for $25.10 per share. The equity sale raised $1 billion of much-needed capital for the cruise operator. Unfortunately, those who bought the shares made precisely 1.9% on their investment over the 71 days that ended on May 6. That compares to a 6.2% gain for the<b>S&amp;P 500</b>during the same period.</p>\n<p>Cruise stocks continue to face significant volatility. After climbing about 140% since it hit its 52-week low of $11 in October, CCL stock may not have any gas left in the tank.</p>\n<p>Is it time to abandon Carnival’s ship? I’ll have a look at the pros and cons of selling the shares.</p>\n<p><b>CCL Stock Once Traded Over $70</b></p>\n<p>When you think about it, is 1.9% a bad return over 71 days? On an annualized basis, it’ works out to about 10%. The average annual return of the S&amp;P 500 from 1957 through 2018&nbsp; was 8%. So, from that perspective, a 1.9% return over 71 days is really not so bad.</p>\n<p>However, the fact that investors can eliminate a ton of company- and industry-specific risks by buying the S&amp;P 500 suggests that the risk-adjusted returns of CCL stock over the 71 days are much worse than that of the index.</p>\n<p>When I last wrote about Carnival in early March, I wondered whether CCL stock could get back to itsall-time highof $72.70. I concluded that Americans’ desire to get out and travel would intensify as more people in the country become fully vaccinated.</p>\n<p>Well, as of May 4,105 millionAmericans were fully vaccinated, while 150 million had received at least one shot. According to U.S. Census data, there are209.1 millionAmericans 18 or older, so about 50% of adult Americans have been fully vaccinated.</p>\n<p>While that’s good, I suspect that cruise reservations won’t start to accelerate until the percentage is much closer to 100%. I realize we won’t actually get there because all kinds of people believe they know better than scientists. But if three-quarters of the adult population gets vaccinated, I believe the various cruise lines’ phones and websites would catch fire from all the future reservations.</p>\n<p>On May 3, AARP, formerly the American Association of Retired Persons, reported that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) had indicated that it wanted to get U.S.-based cruise shipsback in businessby midsummer. That would be well ahead of its previous target of November 2021.</p>\n<p>Under the CDC’s new rules, fully vaccinated passengers will only have to take a rapid antigen test when embarking on cruises. Those who are not fully vaccinated can still go on cruises, but they must get polymerase-chain-reaction (PCR) coronavirus tests in advance.</p>\n<p><b>Royal Caribbean</b>(NYSE:<b><u>RCL</u></b>) CEO Richard Fain said that its ships that recently sailed out of foreign ports had just ten Covid-19 cases out of 100,000 travelers. If that doesn’t tell you something about the future of cruising, nothing will.</p>\n<p>As I said in March, I do think CCL stock can reach $50 by the end of 2021. Fain’s comments made me more confident about that belief.</p>\n<p><b>Volatility Is Still High</b></p>\n<p>U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen spooked the markets on May 4 when she stated that interest rates might have to rise to make sure the economy doesn’t overheat. Carnival’s stock fell on the news.</p>\n<p><i>The Motley Fool’s</i>Rich Smith tied Yellen’s comments about interest rates to the unbelievable amount of debt that each of the three major publicly traded cruise operators have amassed over the past 15 months.</p>\n<p>“From the end of 2019 through the most recent quarter, Carnival Corporation’slong-term debt loadhas nearly tripled in size, to $26.5 billion,” Smith wrote in his May 4 article.</p>\n<p>“Smaller Royal Caribbean’s debt load is up 150% at $20.7 billion, and even Norwegian Cruise Line has needed to double up on debt, which now stands at $11.7 billion.”</p>\n<p>Consider Carnival’s best-case scenario.</p>\n<p>In fiscal 2016, Carnival had an operating margin of 18.7% based on$16.4 billionof revenue and $3.1 billion of operating income. In 2016, it had free cash flow of $2.1 billion [$5.1 billioncash provided by operating activities less $3.1 billion of capital expenditures]. That’s as high as Carnival’s free cash flow (FCF) has been in recent years.</p>\n<p>Even if it issues no new debt,&nbsp; gets its FCF up to 2016 levels, and uses all of that FCF to pay down debt, it would take close to 13 years to&nbsp; pay down its debt entirely. Under the same conditions, it would need a little over seven years&nbsp; to return to its 2019 debt level of around$11.5 billion.</p>\n<p>First, Carnival has to get to get its FCF up to $2.1 billion. That could take 12-24 months. Then it’s got to hope that interest rates haven’t increased by much during that time.</p>\n<p>That’s a tall order.</p>\n<p><b>The Bottom Line</b></p>\n<p>I’ve always liked the cruise industry, despite the fact that its business model requires massive amounts of capital. However, that requirement keeps a lot of would-be competitors out of the game.</p>\n<p>From where I sit, now is not the time to abandon the Carnival ship. In fact, if you were one of the investors who bought CCL stock at $25.10 in February, I would have some cash ready in case volatility send its shares into the low $20s in the months ahead.</p>\n<p>Over the long-term, I think the shares could test their all-time high by the end of 2022. Stay the course.</p>\n<p><i>On the date of publication, Will Ashworth did not have (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article.</i></p>","source":"lsy1606302653667","collect":0,"html":"<!DOCTYPE html>\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=utf-8\" />\n<meta name=\"viewport\" content=\"width=device-width,initial-scale=1.0,minimum-scale=1.0,maximum-scale=1.0,user-scalable=no\"/>\n<meta name=\"format-detection\" content=\"telephone=no,email=no,address=no\" />\n<title>Is It Time for Carnival’s Investors to Abandon Ship?</title>\n<style type=\"text/css\">\na,abbr,acronym,address,applet,article,aside,audio,b,big,blockquote,body,canvas,caption,center,cite,code,dd,del,details,dfn,div,dl,dt,\nem,embed,fieldset,figcaption,figure,footer,form,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,header,hgroup,html,i,iframe,img,ins,kbd,label,legend,li,mark,menu,nav,\nobject,ol,output,p,pre,q,ruby,s,samp,section,small,span,strike,strong,sub,summary,sup,table,tbody,td,tfoot,th,thead,time,tr,tt,u,ul,var,video{ font:inherit;margin:0;padding:0;vertical-align:baseline;border:0 }\nbody{ font-size:16px; line-height:1.5; color:#999; background:transparent; }\n.wrapper{ overflow:hidden;word-break:break-all;padding:10px; }\nh1,h2{ font-weight:normal; line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:.6em; }\nh3,h4,h5,h6{ line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:1em; }\nh1{ font-size:24px; }\nh2{ font-size:20px; }\nh3{ font-size:18px; }\nh4{ font-size:16px; }\nh5{ font-size:14px; }\nh6{ font-size:12px; }\np,ul,ol,blockquote,dl,table{ margin:1.2em 0; }\nul,ol{ margin-left:2em; }\nul{ list-style:disc; }\nol{ list-style:decimal; }\nli,li p{ margin:10px 0;}\nimg{ max-width:100%;display:block;margin:0 auto 1em; }\nblockquote{ color:#B5B2B1; border-left:3px solid #aaa; padding:1em; }\nstrong,b{font-weight:bold;}\nem,i{font-style:italic;}\ntable{ width:100%;border-collapse:collapse;border-spacing:1px;margin:1em 0;font-size:.9em; }\nth,td{ padding:5px;text-align:left;border:1px solid #aaa; }\nth{ font-weight:bold;background:#5d5d5d; }\n.symbol-link{font-weight:bold;}\n/* header{ border-bottom:1px solid #494756; } */\n.title{ margin:0 0 8px;line-height:1.3;color:#ddd; }\n.meta {color:#5e5c6d;font-size:13px;margin:0 0 .5em; }\na{text-decoration:none; color:#2a4b87;}\n.meta .head { display: inline-block; overflow: hidden}\n.head .h-thumb { width: 30px; height: 30px; margin: 0; padding: 0; border-radius: 50%; float: left;}\n.head .h-content { margin: 0; padding: 0 0 0 9px; float: left;}\n.head .h-name {font-size: 13px; color: #eee; margin: 0;}\n.head .h-time {font-size: 11px; color: #7E829C; margin: 0;line-height: 11px;}\n.small {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.9); -webkit-transform: scale(0.9); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.smaller {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.8); -webkit-transform: scale(0.8); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.bt-text {font-size: 12px;margin: 1.5em 0 0 0}\n.bt-text p {margin: 0}\n</style>\n</head>\n<body>\n<div class=\"wrapper\">\n<header>\n<h2 class=\"title\">\nIs It Time for Carnival’s Investors to Abandon Ship?\n</h2>\n\n<h4 class=\"meta\">\n\n\n2021-05-11 17:14 GMT+8&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href=https://investorplace.com/2021/05/is-it-time-to-abandon-ccl-stock-and-the-carnival-ship/><strong>InvestorPlace</strong></a>\n\n\n</h4>\n\n</header>\n<article>\n<div>\n<p>If you can buy some CCL stock in the low $20s, you definitely should.\n\nOn Feb. 24,Carnival(NYSE:CCL) sold40.45 million sharesof CCL stock for $25.10 per share. The equity sale raised $1 billion of ...</p>\n\n<a href=\"https://investorplace.com/2021/05/is-it-time-to-abandon-ccl-stock-and-the-carnival-ship/\">Web Link</a>\n\n</div>\n\n\n</article>\n</div>\n</body>\n</html>\n","type":0,"thumbnail":"","relate_stocks":{"CCL":"嘉年华邮轮"},"source_url":"https://investorplace.com/2021/05/is-it-time-to-abandon-ccl-stock-and-the-carnival-ship/","is_english":true,"share_image_url":"https://static.laohu8.com/e9f99090a1c2ed51c021029395664489","article_id":"1141353819","content_text":"If you can buy some CCL stock in the low $20s, you definitely should.\n\nOn Feb. 24,Carnival(NYSE:CCL) sold40.45 million sharesof CCL stock for $25.10 per share. The equity sale raised $1 billion of much-needed capital for the cruise operator. Unfortunately, those who bought the shares made precisely 1.9% on their investment over the 71 days that ended on May 6. That compares to a 6.2% gain for theS&P 500during the same period.\nCruise stocks continue to face significant volatility. After climbing about 140% since it hit its 52-week low of $11 in October, CCL stock may not have any gas left in the tank.\nIs it time to abandon Carnival’s ship? I’ll have a look at the pros and cons of selling the shares.\nCCL Stock Once Traded Over $70\nWhen you think about it, is 1.9% a bad return over 71 days? On an annualized basis, it’ works out to about 10%. The average annual return of the S&P 500 from 1957 through 2018  was 8%. So, from that perspective, a 1.9% return over 71 days is really not so bad.\nHowever, the fact that investors can eliminate a ton of company- and industry-specific risks by buying the S&P 500 suggests that the risk-adjusted returns of CCL stock over the 71 days are much worse than that of the index.\nWhen I last wrote about Carnival in early March, I wondered whether CCL stock could get back to itsall-time highof $72.70. I concluded that Americans’ desire to get out and travel would intensify as more people in the country become fully vaccinated.\nWell, as of May 4,105 millionAmericans were fully vaccinated, while 150 million had received at least one shot. According to U.S. Census data, there are209.1 millionAmericans 18 or older, so about 50% of adult Americans have been fully vaccinated.\nWhile that’s good, I suspect that cruise reservations won’t start to accelerate until the percentage is much closer to 100%. I realize we won’t actually get there because all kinds of people believe they know better than scientists. But if three-quarters of the adult population gets vaccinated, I believe the various cruise lines’ phones and websites would catch fire from all the future reservations.\nOn May 3, AARP, formerly the American Association of Retired Persons, reported that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) had indicated that it wanted to get U.S.-based cruise shipsback in businessby midsummer. That would be well ahead of its previous target of November 2021.\nUnder the CDC’s new rules, fully vaccinated passengers will only have to take a rapid antigen test when embarking on cruises. Those who are not fully vaccinated can still go on cruises, but they must get polymerase-chain-reaction (PCR) coronavirus tests in advance.\nRoyal Caribbean(NYSE:RCL) CEO Richard Fain said that its ships that recently sailed out of foreign ports had just ten Covid-19 cases out of 100,000 travelers. If that doesn’t tell you something about the future of cruising, nothing will.\nAs I said in March, I do think CCL stock can reach $50 by the end of 2021. Fain’s comments made me more confident about that belief.\nVolatility Is Still High\nU.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen spooked the markets on May 4 when she stated that interest rates might have to rise to make sure the economy doesn’t overheat. Carnival’s stock fell on the news.\nThe Motley Fool’sRich Smith tied Yellen’s comments about interest rates to the unbelievable amount of debt that each of the three major publicly traded cruise operators have amassed over the past 15 months.\n“From the end of 2019 through the most recent quarter, Carnival Corporation’slong-term debt loadhas nearly tripled in size, to $26.5 billion,” Smith wrote in his May 4 article.\n“Smaller Royal Caribbean’s debt load is up 150% at $20.7 billion, and even Norwegian Cruise Line has needed to double up on debt, which now stands at $11.7 billion.”\nConsider Carnival’s best-case scenario.\nIn fiscal 2016, Carnival had an operating margin of 18.7% based on$16.4 billionof revenue and $3.1 billion of operating income. In 2016, it had free cash flow of $2.1 billion [$5.1 billioncash provided by operating activities less $3.1 billion of capital expenditures]. That’s as high as Carnival’s free cash flow (FCF) has been in recent years.\nEven if it issues no new debt,  gets its FCF up to 2016 levels, and uses all of that FCF to pay down debt, it would take close to 13 years to  pay down its debt entirely. Under the same conditions, it would need a little over seven years  to return to its 2019 debt level of around$11.5 billion.\nFirst, Carnival has to get to get its FCF up to $2.1 billion. That could take 12-24 months. Then it’s got to hope that interest rates haven’t increased by much during that time.\nThat’s a tall order.\nThe Bottom Line\nI’ve always liked the cruise industry, despite the fact that its business model requires massive amounts of capital. However, that requirement keeps a lot of would-be competitors out of the game.\nFrom where I sit, now is not the time to abandon the Carnival ship. In fact, if you were one of the investors who bought CCL stock at $25.10 in February, I would have some cash ready in case volatility send its shares into the low $20s in the months ahead.\nOver the long-term, I think the shares could test their all-time high by the end of 2022. Stay the course.\nOn the date of publication, Will Ashworth did not have (either directly or indirectly) any positions in the securities mentioned in this article.","news_type":1},"isVote":1,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false,"reportStatus":false,"tweetType":1,"langContent":"CN"}],"hasMoreComments":true,"newsSizeData":{"likeSize":19,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"favoriteSize":0,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false}}