Carnival’s Earnings Were a Pleasant Surprise, and We See 3 Reasons to Buy This Stock Today

Carnival (CCL) got a nice 2% bump to start Friday’s trading session before ultimately falling a bit below its opening price. Nevertheless, the stock is up 3% in the past week as the company delivered upbeat earnings for the fiscal fourth quarter.

While Carnival still posted a loss of 7 cents, analysts were forecasting a much wider loss at 13 cents. The company delivered a slight revenue beat as well at $5.4 billion compared to $5.3 billion. 

This was a record revenue performance for Q4. It also represented a dramatic turnaround from this time last year when the company delivered just $3.84 billion.

CEO Josh Weinstein says that Carnival started the fiscal year on strong footing with their best booking position ever. 

But, it’s only going to get better as the company has booked ⅔ its occupancy for 2024 at higher prices than last year. Carnival saw higher Q4 bookings than even 2019 and pre-pandemic – with occupancy of 101%. 

The travel demand is high, which explains the torrent pace CCL has been at in the past year. It’s risen more than 124% since this time last year, and it’s up more than 33% in the past month alone.

Looking ahead to the new year, Carnival is forecasting adjusted EBITDA of approximately $5.6 billion. This would be a 30% growth year over year. The Q1 goal is an adjusted EBITDA of $800 million, which would be a milestone performance itself – more than double the performance of 2023. 

That being said, should you buy CCL going into 2024? We’ve taken a look through the VectorVest stock analysis software and uncovered 3 compelling reasons to pay attention to this stock.

CCL Has Excellent Upside Potential and Timing Paired With Fair Safety

VectorVest has outperformed the S&P 500 index by 10x over the past 20 years and counting. You’re given all the insights you need to make calculated, confident decisions through 3 simple ratings: relative value (RV), relative safety (RS), and relative timing (RT).

Each rating sits on its own scale of 0.00-2.00 with 1.00 being the average. You’re then given a clear buy, sell, or hold recommendation based on the overall VST rating for any given stock at any given time. Here’s why we like CCL:

• Excellent Upside Potential: The RV rating compares a stock’s long-term price appreciation potential (forecasted 3 years out) to AAA corporate bond rates and risk. It offers much better insight than a simple comparison of price to value alone. As for CCL, the RV rating of 1.52 is excellent. The stock is currently undervalued as well, as VectorVest believes the current value to be $21/share.
• Fair Safety: CCL is a fairly safe stock as well with an RS rating of 0.96. This risk indicator is calculated through an analysis of the company’s financial consistency & predictability, debt-to-equity ratio, business longevity, sales volume, price volatility, and other factors.
• Excellent Timing: As you can see by the stock’s performance in both the short and long term, CCL has excellent timing. The RT rating of 1.73 reflects this. It’s based on the direction, dynamics, and magnitude of the stock’s price movement day over day, week over week, quarter over quarter, and year over year.

The overall VST rating of 1.45 is excellent for CCL, and it’s rated a BUY right now. Learn more about the current opportunity through a free stock analysis today - don’t let this one pass you by!

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VectorVest advocates buying safe, undervalued stocks, rising in price. CCL is now up 33% this month and 124% in the past year. The company just delivered an impressive Q4 earnings and is optimistic heading into the new year. The stock has excellent upside potential and timing with fair safety.

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