Hello Share Pickers. Covid wreaked a heap of damage on the cruise ship trade. Not only was foreign travel restricted but the virus had a fine old time on some ships. But the cruise giant Carnival (CCL) is now doing better than ever before.
A few quarters ago, I finally got some common-sense and exited my (fortunately very small) Carnival plc (CCL) position. Back in December, I observed that “the grass is always greener next year for Carnival”...and that still feels the same.
Just under three months ago, I wrote “I really do hope that you are not feeling too pessimistic about global financial markets and your portfolio”. And, as we get even closer to ending 2022 and starting 2023, I really hope you feel excited about future investment opportunities. It is never easy but it is never impossible either. However, that does not mean you should own shares in every stock and that brings us on again to Carnival plc (CCL).
I really do hope that you are not feeling too pessimistic about global financial markets and your portfolio. Sadly, stuff does happen and what matters is always how you respond to such challenges. Meanwhile in personal positions and investment choices I see that I get another opportunity to talk about and appraise Carnival (CCL), where frankly I would have been much, much wiser to have a holiday or three on the “6,465-passenger Carnival Mardi Gras, one of the largest cruise ships in service across all lines”, rather than holding shares in the company (whose US listed shares were at a share price last seen in 1993 yesterday afternoon)...
Tom was absolutely correct in yesterday’s Bearcast to observe that the news late Wednesday/early Thursday that Carnival plc (CCL) “has priced its previously announced underwritten public offering of 102,139,621 shares of common stock of the Company at a public offering price of $9.95 per share”, was not the greatest. Somehow the shares are still up in July…but we will not mention the year-to-date or last three-year performance.
How is your portfolio year-to-date? It has not been the easiest six months, but I've seen worse. Carnival plc (CCL) - my smallest personal portfolio holding at, fortunately, way below 1% - has also been my most disastrous. Perhaps, one day I will make it onto a cruise ship, but as a shareholding, I remain at a material loss. What did it say in the quarterlies, and what shall I do about my small position?
It is probably a good thing that I don’t own any shares in Kingfisher (KGF). I certainly have in the past but - as I noted back in November - “Kingfisher is in a much better position than a few years back, but you don’t need to aggressively buy back in…But I am not ignoring it either…Screwfix spin-off before 2025?”. Back then the share price was above 320p and now it is below 280p.
As if we did not know it, the investment world is clearly evolving. Whilst the Bank of England flirted with an even bigger than expected interest rate rise than what was expected, the big surprise came from the boring old European Central Bank. I know it did not change its multi-year turning Japanese negative interest rate policy, but even it admitted it might too raise interest rates by the end of this year. Essentially for the hundredth time this year, every investor is being told it is not as easy a world as global markets have seen since the 2009 mega international bailouts. Pick your stocks carefully…which brings me onto my current most unsuccessful share Carnival Cruise Line (CCL)...
Hello Share Swallowers. You wouldn't catch me on a pleasure cruise. Too many people. However, there’s no doubting their popularity. And if it wasn't for the virus getting an early cruise ship footing, they would be even more popular. But the plague could soon be on the way out. And then that big cruise operation Carnival (CCL) should be steaming ahead again.
It has been a funny last 13 months, but fortunately the financial markets have been the last of my challenges. Obviously I am still not the next Peter Lynch, but I keep on learning (something) even if it was a quarter of a century ago now that I first rocked up in the City. And whilst I could ramble on at length about a few winners this year, one of the more dull stocks has been Carnival (CCL) which I am currently up on 0.25% year-to-date.
It is a good debate whether the weekend is the start of the week or the end of the week. Given a choice I would say the latter and - reflecting this - it is time to play a bit of catch up on three stocks I have mentioned before.
As I noted last month here, I do own some shares in Carnival Corporation (CCL) on the basis that (1) I was too optimistic in early 2020 thinking about Covid-19 only being focused on China but; (2) I did double up my holding a couple of months later on the basis that the owner of the Carnival Cruise Line, Princess Cruises, Holland America Line, P&O Cruises, Seabourn, Costa Cruises, AIDA Cruises and Cunard was going to be loved by a growing number of (rich and ageing) holidaymakers around the world. Obviously I would not ever go myself...but as discussed about multiple other sectors and stocks, this has never been a reason for me not to invest (after all, inherently I am personally unbelievably boring in any case).
You know some of my recent thoughts on the cruise ship company Carnival (CCL), which I bought too early in the Covid-19 crisis but doubled up more sensibly. So are we going to see a run back to a twenty quid or above share price to bring me back to profit?
First I see that Carnival (CCL) shares are up a couple of percent this morning to a £16 share price. Despite an initial badly timed investment of the shares below £30 over a year ago when only China was impacted by the Covid-19 challenges, a further sales update has brought me closer to breaking even. It struck me during the dog days of last year that there was some potential to see a substantial share price improvement. After all if you get vaccinated - as a growing proportion of older and/or richer travellers in the world are - then your scope to get back onto a cruise ship in 2021-2 has gone substantially up...
