Financial News

Equities research group Barclays Capital is lowering their target price for Royal Caribbean from $55.00 to $53.00 ahead of Royal Caribbean's quarterly financial report that is due on Thursday.  Barclay analysts currently have an “overweight” rating on the stock.

Another group, Credit Suisse, upgraded Royal Caribbean shares from "neutral" to "outperform" in a note to investors back on April 6th. They now have a $55.00 price target on the stock, up previously from $44.70

UBS AG analysts had already cut their price target on Royal Caribbean shares from $45 to 42 on March  23rd.

None of these opinions mattered to investors yesterday as Royal Caribbean stock traded up 1.56% during mid-day trading on Tuesday.  Royal Caribbean last announced its quarterly results on January 27th when it reported a $0.20 earnings per share (EPS) for the previous quarter, beating the Thomson Reuters consensus estimate of $0.13 EPS by $0.07. During the same quarter in the prior year, the company posted $0.02 earnings per share. The company’s quarterly revenue was up 10.5% on a year-over-year basis. On average, analysts predict that Royal Caribbean will post $0.57 EPS next quarter.

Royal Caribbean will hold a conference call on April 28, 2011 at 10am to discuss its first quarter 2011 financial results.

 The call will be available on-line at the company's investor relations web site, www.rclinvestor.com. To listen to the call by phone, please dial (877) 663-9606 in the US and Canada. International phone calls should be made to (706) 758-4628. There is no passcode or meeting number. A replay of the webcast will be available at the same site for a month following the call.

At the cruise industry conference and trade show Cruise Shipping Miami 2011, Royal Caribbean CEO Adam Goldstein indicated that the recession has forced Royal Caribbean to send more ships to markets outside of the United States, such as Europe, to seek higher revenue.

Before the recession, cruise lines such as Royal Caribbean got most of their customers from North America but the economic quagmire pushed the cruise giant to look abroad and encourage new source markets.  It's a strategy that Goldstein indicated would not be changing any time soon.

Europe, in particular, has been a target of Royal Caribbean as Goldstein sees it as a market that can provide much of the growth needed for Royal Caribbean to continue to grow.

A record 15 million people worldwide cruised in 2010 and 2011 is expected to exceed that number, thanks to higher demand outside of North America as well as a largely untapped market of potential cruisers in North America of which only 3 percent of the population has cruised.

Royal Caribbean announced better than expected fourth quarter and full year 2010 results.  Its fourth-quarter net income climbed to $42.7 million or $0.20 per share from $3.4 million or $0.02 per share a year ago.

Royal Caribbean revenues for the fourth quarter were up to $1.6 billion, compared to $1.5 billion in the 2009 fourth quarter.  Royal Caribbean attributes this increase to additional ship capacity and yield improvements.  

Royal Caribbean also mentioned that during the fourth quarter, weather issues affected some of the ships and that affected the Net Yields a little bit as it increased 3.2%, but if you take away the weather issues, Net Yields on a Constant Currency basis would have increased 4.7%, in line with previous guidance.

Thanks to better energy consumption innovations, Royal Caribbean's quarter's fuel expenditures were about $4 million better than initially predicted.

In addition to the fourth quarter results, 2010 yearly results were in and net income for 2010 was $547.5 million, compared to net income of $162.4 million for the year 2009. Moreover, 2010 revenues increased to $6.8 billion, a 15% increase, compared to 2009 revenues of $5.9 million.  Royal Caribbean's net cruise costs excluding fuel declined for the third year in a row.

Royal Caribbean has scheduled to announce its fourth quarter 2010 financial results with analysts for Thursday, January 27, 2011 at 10:00am.  

J.P Morgan expects "solid 4Q10 results" based on strong demand and ticket prices in the quarter. Despite rising price of crude and bunker fuel, J.P Morgan thinks the higher costs will be offset by "strong operating momentum" of Royal Caribbean's young and innovative fleet of cruise ships.

The call will be available on-line at the company's investor relations web site, www.rclinvestor.com. To listen to the call by phone, please dial (877) 663-9606 in the US and Canada. International phone calls should be made to (706) 758-4628. There is no passcode or meeting number. A replay of the webcast will be available at the same site for a month following the call.

Royal Caribbean third-quarter earnings rose an amazing 55% thanks to increased cruising demand and operating and fuel costs fell.  Revenue rose to $2.06 billion from $1.76 billion a year before.

Third-quarter earnings were $356.8 million, or $1.64 per share, compared with earnings of $230.4 million, or $1.07 per share, a year earlier.

Royal Caribbean said it's near-term bookings were stronger than they had expected while revenue remained stable and continues to "be characterized as slowly improving,".

In addition to its third-quarter results, Royal Caribbean gave investors a prelimary look at 2011 earnings and expects to exceed Royal Caribbean's previous record of $3.26 a share.

Royal Caribbean has scheduled a conference call for Tuesday, October 26, 2010 at 10am Eastern time to announce the results of it's third quarter fiscal calendar earnings.

If you're interested in hearing the results live, you can listen on-line at Royal Caribbean's investor relations web site, www.rclinvestor.com. To listen to the call by phone, please dial (877) 663-9606 in the US and Canada. International phone calls should be made to (706) 758-4628. A replay of the webcast will be available at the same site for a month following the call.

If there's one cruise company that has placed the most resources in the idea that European cruise demand is what will drive profits, it's been Royal Caribbean.  Over the past couple of years, Royal Caribbean has been moving more and more of their ships to Europe to meet the perceived demand for cruise ships as well as the strong Euro.  Yesterday, cruise stock prices fell on the New York Stock Exchange on concerns about demand in Europe and on a drop in the broader stock market.

Royal Caribbean stock dropped 4.9 percent to $26.74 after trading on Wednesday and competitor cruise line stocks followed as well. The reason for the drop in price was a day earlier, Europe's biggest travel company, TUI Travel, said strong booking patterns seen in early May were not sustained during the early summer period.

"TUI Travel (Plc's) cautionary comments coupled (with) recent comments from European-based consumer staple companies of slowing demand cannot be dismissed and will bear ongoing close monitoring," Wells Fargo analyst Timothy Conder said in a research note Wednesday.

All isn't lost quite yet, as Wells Fargo Analyst Timothy Conder also said that booking and pricing trends for European-based cruises remained "encouraging."

Two weeks ago, Royal Caribbean (NYSE:RCL) announced better than expected earnings for its second quarter report with EPS of $0.28 on sales of $1.6 billion, beating EPS estimates by $0.09 and missing revenues estimates by $19 million.  Since then, the Royal Caribbean stock price has risen 6.35%, from $27.56 to $29.31 in the last 15 days.

This is obviously great news for those who own Royal Caribbean stock as well as fans of the company, given that a stronger stock price translates out to a stronger company overall.

Royal Caribbean had sales growth of 18.7% during the last fiscal year. The company reported $6.3 billion in sales over the past 12 months and is expected to report $7.5 billion in sales in the next fiscal year according to SmarTrend.

We reported yesterday Royal Caribbean's second quarter 2010 earnings report and the news was so good that it gave the Royal Caribbean stock a nice push upwards.  Investors were happy to see shares of Royal Caribbean Cruises closed up 12 percent Thursday on positive earnings news for the second quarter and a positive outlook for the rest of the year.  

The price of Royal Caribbean stock closed up $2.98 to $27.50 at the end of trading on Thursday.  Cruise companies were battered a year ago amid the recession, and shares of Royal Caribbean and Carnival were hampered recently by fears of a double dip recession. Royal Caribbean's outlook Thursday helped put those fears to rest.