Capsizing Royal Caribbean With Carnival... (CCL, RCL)

Carnival Corporation (NYSE: CCL) is getting hammered this morning after one of its Costa cruise lines grounded and partially capsized, resulting in the loss of life and resulting in million and millions of dollars of damages to Carnival and its earnings.  Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. (NYSE: RCL) is being negatively impacted as well and it had nothing to do with this.

The company has put the quarterly hit at about $0.11 to $0.12 against its earnings per share.  J.P. Morgan downgraded the stock as a result of the accident’s impact.  Carnival’s Costa brand is countered by the other brands of Cunard, P&O, AIDA, and Ibero internationally and the Carnival brand known so well throughout North America.

What is interesting here is that by seeing a drop of 16%, it is analogous to losing one-sixth of the vale when this is about 1% of its counted ships.  It sounds like too much of a drop on the surface, but this comes at a time when the European business is rocky and at a time when promotions are high.  Things were already tough, but this made a declining situation very bad.

Carnival shares fell more than 16% on Monday in London trading, but shares are up less than 1% in London trading today.  In New York, Carnival Corporation (NYSE: CCL) shares are trading down 16.3% at $28.74 and the 52-week trading range is $28.52 to $48.13. Its market value before this accident was over $26.6 billion.

Royal Caribbean Cruises Ltd. (NYSE: RCL) is down 7.5% at $26.59 and its 52-week range is $18.70 to $49.99. Its market value was about $6.25 billion before the trading of this morning.

JON C. OGG