Macquarie Research has upgraded the cruise stocks to Outperform, asserting that “most negative catalysts are in the rear-view mirror.”
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Macquarie Research has upgraded the cruise stocks to Outperform, asserting that “most negative catalysts are in the rear-view mirror.”
Based on valuation, Paul Golding and Charles Yu of Macquarie wrote that they see the most upside in Norwegian Cruise Line Holdings (ticker: NCLH), followed by Carnival (CCL), and Royal Caribbean Group (RCL). They upgraded the stocks from Neutral.
Shares for Norwegian were at $31 and change Tuesday morning, up 4.6% in early trading, while Royal Caribbean and Carnival were also each up more than 4%.
The cruise operators have for the most part been unable to have any sailings for about a year due to the pandemic. A key question is when sailings in and out of U.S. reports will resume. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a conditional sail order last October, but U.S. sailings haven’t resumed. The cruise companies have suspended their U.S. sailings well into the spring.
Golding and Yu wrote that “technical instructions from the CDC are also forthcoming and could drive more confidence.”
In an email to Barron’s early last month, a CDC representative wrote: “Future orders and technical instructions will address additional activities to help cruise lines prepare for and return to passenger operations in a manner that mitigates COVID-19 risk among passengers, crew members, including simulated voyages, certification for conditional sailing, and restricted voyages.”
Although still well below their pre-pandemic levels in early 2020, the cruise stocks have been moving up as investors get more confident about a reopening of the economy. As of Monday’s close, the stocks of all three companies were up by at least 15% year to date.
Besides forthcoming guidance from the CDC, macro catalysts for the cruise companies include “an expectation of sufficient vaccine efficacy for consumers to feel comfortable engaging in leisure activities.”
“While shares have bounced quite a way off their 1-[year] lows, and barring recession or a sector rerating, the catalysts should trend more positive from here into summer,” they wrote.
The research note points out that Carnival’s announcement last month that it had closed on a $3.5 billion senior unsecured debt offering “bodes well” for its liquidity situation and for the industry’s. “It demonstrates the potential for the group to continue to fund operations even if the suspension gets drawn out,” they noted.
Separately, Carnival announced last month that it had priced an offering for its 40.5 million shares of common stock at $25.10. That adds up to about $1 billion of additional capital, one of various steps the company has taken to shore up its liquidity as its ships sit idle and it burns through hundreds of millions of dollars every month.
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A survey of people with at least $1 million in investable assets found women in their 30s and 40s look nothing like older generations in terms of assets and priorities
A survey of people with at least $1 million in investable assets found women in their 30s and 40s look nothing like older generations in terms of assets and priorities
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Millennial women’s wealth is outpacing men’s as a new generation inherits and grows their assets at a wider scale than ever before, according to RBC Wealth Management.
In a survey of roughly 2,000 men and women with at least $1 million in investable assets, millennial women respondents had an average of $4.6 million, compared with $3.8 million for women of all age groups and $4.5 million for all men.
Inheritance is one part of the picture, as baby boomers are expected to transfer $124 trillion to the next generation, but so is the progress millennial women have made in the world of business, investment and lucrative professional careers as they close the gap with men.
“Millennial women are catching up, or have outpaced the males as far as their wealth building,” said Angie O’Leary, head of wealth strategies at RBC. “We know that’s coming from a more diversified set of investments, such as entrepreneurship, real estate and of course, investments [in financial markets].”
Millennial women, now in their 30s and 40s, tend to differ from earlier generations of women more than they do from men in terms of their source of wealth. While investments were the largest driver of wealth across all categories, millennial women cited business ownership, innovation, and executive roles far more than Gen X or boomer women.
More than 60% of millennial women cited business ownership and more than 40% mentioned executive roles, but neither exceeded 22% for either Gen Xers and Boomers. Younger women also grew their fortunes from professional sports or arts 39% of the time, compared with just 6% and 1% for Gen Xers and Boomers, respectively.
In terms of inheritance, the gap between generations was smaller. About 37% of men and 35% of women cited family money as a source of wealth overall, breaking down to 44% of millennials, 30% of Gen X and 33% of boomer women.
With women controlling so much wealth, their spending and investments as a group are evolving and extending into areas previously considered stereotypically male such as real estate, cars and watches, O’Leary said. “Women are starting to look a lot like their male counterparts when it comes to investments, real estate, philanthropy,” she said. “That’s a really interesting emerging female economy.”
In real estate, for example, single women made up 20% of home buyers in 2024 up from 11% in 1981, when the National Association of Realtors began tracking the data. By contrast, single men make up 8% of the market and have never exceeded 10%, according to NAR.
While men and women shared largely similar priorities overall in terms of well-being, relationships, legacy and personal drive, younger generations of women were successively more likely to value drive and personal power, and successively less likely to rank relationships and social bonds—though that could also be a function of age and stage of life.
“This generational shift suggests evolving societal norms and responsibilities, where younger women seek personal achievements, while older cohorts value nurturing connections and community stability, affecting their financial and lifestyle choices,” the report said.
